There must be something magic about the evolution of hallucinogens/psychedelics! 😊
"Psychoactive compounds in certain mushrooms can provoke profound psychedelic experiences, but researchers don’t fully understand why the hallucinogenic fungi evolved in the first place. Now a new analysis has added to that confusion.
Two distinct genera of magic mushroom produce the same psychoactive compound through entirely different chemical pathways, suggesting they evolved independently.
The researchers made the discovery after examining the genes and proteins involved in psilocybin production in fungi from the genus Inocybe, commonly known as fiber cap mushrooms. They assumed that these mushrooms would synthesize the compound in much the same way as the better studied fungi in the genus Psilocybe, such as Psilocybe cubensis. But to the researchers’ surprise, the fiber cap mushrooms produced psilocybin through a totally different set of biochemical steps.
Like the pathway in Psilocybe mushrooms, the process in fiber caps can result in two different compounds: either psilocybin or a related molecule known as baeocystin. However, the two syntheses follow completely different logics. Psilocybe mushrooms proceed sequentially and make psilocybin out of baeocystin.
Fiber caps, by contrast, make both compounds side by side, using none of the same enzymes. ..."
From the abstract:
"Psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine, 1) is the main indolethyl-amine natural product of psychotropic (so-called “magic”) mushrooms. The majority of 1-producing species belongs to the eponymous genus Psilocybe, for which the biosynthetic events, beginning from l-tryptophan (2), and the involved enzymes have thoroughly been characterized.
Some Inocybe (fiber cap) species, among them Inocybe corydalina, produce 1 as well. In product formation assays, we characterized four recombinantly produced biosynthesis enzymes of this species in vitro: IpsD, a pyridoxal-5′-phosphate-dependent l-tryptophan decarboxylase, the kinase IpsK, and two near-identical methyltransferases, IpsM1 and IpsM2. The fifth enzyme, the insoluble monooxygenase IpsH, was analyzed in silico.
Surprisingly, none of the reactions intrinsic to the 1 pathway in Psilocybe species takes place in I. corydalina.
Contrasting the situation in Psilocybe, the Inocybe pathway is branched and leads to baeocystin (4-phosphoryloxy-N-methyltryptamine, 3) as a second end product. Our results demonstrate that mushrooms recruited distantly or entirely unrelated enzymes to evolve the metabolic capacity for 1 biosynthesis twice independently."
Dissimilar Reactions and Enzymes for Psilocybin Biosynthesis in Inocybe and Psilocybe Mushrooms (open access)
Graphical Abstract
Mushrooms have learned twice independently how to make the iconic magic mushroom natural product psilocybin. This article introduces the enzymes of the second pathway, found in a fiber cap mushroom. Curiously, the two pathways do not share any reaction, nor do the enzymes show a close relationship, but both pathways proceed via 4-hydroxytryptamine as a common intermediate.
What was The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour of 1967 all about? 😊
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