N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a bioactive indole alkaloid that could greatly benefit from scalable, fermentation-based production for research and pharmaceutical applications. In this study, we reconstructed a two-step bacterial pathway converting L-tryptophan to DMT via tryptamine. This involved combining a pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP)-dependent tryptophan decarboxylase from the bacterium...
Interest in the potential therapeutic efficacy of psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds has escalated significantly in recent years. To date, little is known regarding the biological activity of the psilocybin pathway intermediate, norbaeocystin, due to limitations around sourcing the phosphorylated tryptamine metabolite for in vivo testing. To address this limitation, we first developed a...