E.coli could be manipulated to produce a substance found in magic mushrooms that wards off depression, research suggests.
A team from Miami University genetically engineered the bacteria to churn out the psychoactive chemical psilocybin.
Best known for triggering ‘trippy’ hallucinations, it is increasingly being tested as a treatment for psychiatric disorders, like addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
If ever approved for these conditions, scientists will want to produce psilocybin without harvesting copious amounts of mushrooms, the team said.
After producing an E.coli strain that contains psilocybin, the scientists managed to increase its production by 500 times over 18 months.
They claim this demonstrates the ‘feasibility’ of manufacturing the chemical ‘economically from a biological source’.
E.coli could be manipulated to produce psilocybin, the psychoactive substance in magic mushrooms. This is increasingly being shown to effectively treat depression (stock)
More than 180 mushrooms species around the world produce psilocybin, Drug Science reported.
The chemical can enhance the senses, cause users to imagine floating objects and create moments of ‘personal reflection’, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.
Psilocybin is listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in the US, making it illegal to cultivate or possess. They are a Class A drug in the UK.
Before 1970, psilocybin was used to treat resistant depression, anxiety and addiction in the UK.
It was around this time the UK ‘caught up with the US-led “war on drugs”‘, according to King’s College London.
Doctors in both the UK and US were then unable to prescribe the chemical outside of authorised research.
Funding for psilocybin studies dried up, causing research to come to a ‘stand still’.
Thirty years later, interest started to pick up again, leading to a slow resurgence of clinical trials.
A study by the UK think-tank Beckley Foundation gave two doses of psilocybin to patients who had battled depression for 18 years and failed to find relief with at least two treatments.
The patients experienced a reduction in symptoms after just one week, which continued six months later.
With a pressing need to produce large amounts of psilocybin, the Miami scientists warn harvesting magic mushrooms would require ‘extensive real estate and time’.
Synthetic chemical production is in place but very expensive, they add.
The team therefore genetically engineered the metabolism of E.coli so its cells produce the chemical.
This approach is not new, with drugs, like insulin for diabetes, already being produced in genetically-engineered bacteria, Live Science reported.
The E.coli strain the Miami team used is safe for laboratory purposes, they wrote in the journal Metabolic Engineering.
‘We are taking the DNA from the mushroom that encodes its ability to make this product and putting it in E.coli,’ lead author Dr Andrew Jones said.
‘It’s similar to the way you make beer, through a fermentation process.
‘We are effectively taking the technology that allows for scale and speed of production and applying it to our psilocybin-producing E. coli.’
After developing multiple strains of ‘psilocybin E.coli’, the bacterium was tested to find its optimal environmental condition.
The most efficient strain, called pPsilo16, was then harvested in large batches.
‘What’s exciting is the speed at which we were able to achieve our high production,’ Dr Jones said.
‘Over the course of this study we improved production from only a few milligrams per litre (0.2 gallons) to over a gram (0.03 oz) per litre, a 500-fold increase.’
The scientists claim this is the most psilocybin that has ever been produced from an organism engineered to express ‘magic mushroom DNA’.