{"id":442,"date":"2022-06-02T13:03:52","date_gmt":"2022-06-02T20:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/?p=442"},"modified":"2022-06-08T16:42:21","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T23:42:21","slug":"caamtech-collaboration-proves-diversity-in-magic-mushroom-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/caamtech-collaboration-proves-diversity-in-magic-mushroom-chemistry\/","title":{"rendered":"CaaMTech Collaboration Proves Diversity in Magic Mushroom Chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Scientists at The Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology <a href=\"https:\/\/caam.tech\/caamtech-collaborates-with-the-leibniz-institute-for-natural-product-research-to-investigate-psychedelic-mushrooms\/\">working in collaboration with CaaMTech<\/a> and UMASS Dartmouth recently reported new results illustrating the diverse chemistry of magic mushrooms. These results were recently published in the journal <em>ChemBioChem<\/em> in a paper titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/cbic.202200249\">Genetic survey of <em>Psilocybe<\/em> natural products<\/a>.\u201d&nbsp; The publication highlights numerous findings about the chemical composition of psilocybin-containing <em>Psilocybe<\/em> \u201cmagic\u201d mushrooms including the discovery of aeruginascin in new species of mushrooms and the presence of terpene compounds.&nbsp; The research highlights the chemical variability across different kinds of magic mushrooms and further underscores that different mushrooms have different properties and effects on account of that chemical variability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Psilocybe <\/em>\u201cmagic\u201d mushrooms\u2019 best known component, psilocybin, is a prodrug of the potent 5-HT<sub>2A <\/sub>agonist and powerful psychedelic compound, psilocin. However, psilocybin co-exists in these mushrooms with other less-studied, structurally similar compounds whose roles and pharmacological properties are poorly understood.&nbsp; The authors of \u201cGenetic survey of <em>Psilocybe<\/em> natural products\u201d browsed the genomes of five species (<em>P. azurescens<\/em>,<em> P. cubensis<\/em>,<em> P. cyanescens<\/em>,<em> P. mexicana<\/em>, and <em>P. serbica<\/em>) to \u201c\u200b\u200bunderstand more profoundly common and species-specific metabolic capacities.\u201d&nbsp; This comparison demonstrated the genetic diversity between different species of magic mushrooms, confirming a difference in their biosynthetic machinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The work revealed far greater metabolic diversity in <em>Psilocybe<\/em> mushrooms than previously reported. Among the findings was the metabolic production of aeruginascin (the <em>N<\/em>-trimethyl analogue of psilocybin, previously found in only three species of mushrooms including <em>P. cubensis<\/em>) in two new species of mushrooms: <em>P. cyanescens<\/em> and <em>P. mexicana<\/em>.&nbsp; Additionally, the researchers found, for the first time ever in <em>Psilocybe<\/em> mushrooms, the presence of terpenes &#8211; a class of compounds responsible for some of the entourage effects in cannabis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDespite six decades of research on magic mushrooms, it is surprising that knowledge on the global set of <em>Psilocybe<\/em> natural products is virtually non-existent,\u201d&nbsp; said Prof. Dr. Dirk Hoffmeister, author on the paper and head of the Research Group Pharmaceutical Microbiology at The Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology in Jena, Germany. &#8220;It has been truly amazing for our team to discover that a diversity of potentially bioactive molecules is genetically encoded in the magic mushrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In light of recent efforts to legalize and decriminalize <em>Psilocybe<\/em> magic mushrooms, \u201cGenetic survey of <em>Psilocybe<\/em> natural products\u201d further highlights the unmet need for a more complete understanding of the mushrooms\u2019 chemical composition and metabolome.&nbsp; For example, the delayed paralytic effects known as Wood Lovers Paralysis caused by some species of <em>Psilocybe<\/em> magic mushrooms has yet to be explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFive years ago magic mushrooms were treated as psilocybin sources without regard to the other compounds,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/caam.tech\/team\/andrew-chadeayne\/\">Dr. Andrew Chadeayne<\/a>, CEO of CaaMTech. \u201cBy changing the focus from mushrooms to molecules, we\u2019re discovering the importance of many previously overlooked compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">A new paper published by The Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research in collaboration with CaaMTech reveals the complex chemistry of magic mushrooms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caam.tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}