Modified E. coli pump out psilocybin
Megha Satyanarayana
C&EN Global Enterprise October 7, 2019 DOI: 10.1021/cen-09739-scicon9 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Escherichia coli bacteria |
| Topics | Psilocybin |
| Key findings | Escherichia coli can be engineered as bioreactors to produce large amounts of psilocybin. |
Abstract
A team of researchers has turned Escherichia coli into tiny bioreactors that can manufacture large amounts of psilocybin, the ingredient in magic mushrooms that leads to their psychoactive effects (Metab. Eng. 2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.ymben.2019.09.009). With the compound in clinical trials for treating depression and other brain diseases, says J. Andrew Jones, the Miami University chemical engineer who led the work, scaled-up manufacturing processes may soon be needed to meet consumer demand. Scientists discovered psilocybin decades ago, but the enzymatic pathway that fungi use to make the molecule wasn't described until 2017. That synthesis, scientists found, starts with a tryptophan-based compound and ends with a phosphorylated product. The phosphate on psilocybin is unstable, however, and in the human body, it's stripped to make psilocin, which can cross the blood-brain barrier, Jones says. So getting that phosphate onto psilocybin is challenging with synthetic methods, he says, but "biology is good at adding
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on psilocybin, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psilocybin induces schizophrenia-like psychosis in humans via a serotonin-2 agonist action Healthy human volunteers | 1998 | Experimental study | |
| Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin Participants in controlled laboratory experiments receiving a moderate to high oral... | 2015 | Validation study using pooled data from five laboratory experiments | n = 184 |
| Broadband Cortical Desynchronization Underlies the Human Psychedelic State Healthy human participants | 2013 | Experimental study | |
| Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer Participants with cancer-related psychiatric distress who completed a parent randomized... | 2020 | Long-term within-subjects follow-up analysis | n = 15 |
| Enzymatic Synthesis of Psilocybin | 2017 | Laboratory study |