Researchers in Australia have analyzed the genomes of over 100 commercial-grade and wild - grown varieties of Psilocybe cubensis , a psychoactive fungi known as the magic mushroom . The findings may eventually help growers develop “ designer shrooms ” that have their own singular wellness benefit , the team says .
Psychedelic mushroom have been used by human for a long clip , possibly forthousands of years . The main ingredient in these mushrooms that affects our brain is called psilocybin . Though there are many psilocybin - check mushrooms , Psilocybe cubensis is the most common commercially grow species now .
Psilocybin is of course taken recreationally , if lawlessly in many places , for its euphoric and dissociative effects . But in recent class , it ’s started to receive a lot more attention for its likely wellness applications . Studies have found that psilocybinused in combinationwith psychotherapy may help citizenry struggling withdepression , substance consumption problems , andpost - traumatic tension disorderwho have n’t answer to other pick . The first stage III trial of psilocybin for depression began this twelvemonth andare expectedto yield upshot as ahead of time as mid-2024 .
Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.Image: YARphotographer (Shutterstock)
While it will take time to confirm the medicinal welfare of psilocybin - serve therapy in large - scurf inquiry , there are plenty of people already using wizard mushrooms for any number of understanding . researcher at The University of Queensland , Australia wanted to better understand the many of course grown or civilize variety of P. cubensis out there today and how our tameness of this kingdom Fungi has commute its evolutionary journeying .
Aided by fellow member of an underground community of interests of magic mushroom cloud growers , the squad ultimately gather up samples from 122 smorgasbord of P. cubensis , include 86 commercial-grade cultivars and 38 varieties topically grown angry in Australia . They then sequenced and compare the genetics of these varieties . Their results werepublishedMonday in the daybook Current Biology .
The team find that commercial cultivar check much less genetic diverseness than their wild counterparts , which often encounter to living things that become domesticated . But this departure may not have always existed , since the team also find out grounds that the Australian varieties are naturalized , meaning they originate from mushrooms introduced to the continent from somewhere else . Their slap-up diverseness today suggests that these naturalize mushrooms recovered from the lack of pas seul seen in commercialised cultivar .
One of Funky Fungus’s new designer mushrooms, a cross-breed of an Australian variety and an existing cultivar.Image: Alistair McTaggart
“ Some of these cultivars have been nearly strip of any diversity except at their genes controlling sexual reproduction , ” said study author Alistair McTaggart in astatementfrom Cell Press , publishing house of the journal . “ Whether this happened intentionally , by direct inbreeding to fix trait over the last half one C , or unintentionally through a lack of variety to cross against is laborious to bang . ”
McTaggart and his squad ’s research might not just tell us more about the inherited history of these psychedelic mushrooms , but inform their futurity . The scientists found unique factor variations related to psilocin production in the naturalized mushroom-shaped cloud , and these variation could be used to make “ intriguer shrooms ” that select for relevant difference in how psilocin is synthesized by nature . The study authors have since establish a startup calledFunky Fungusthat ’s already using the work to uprise unique cultivars of psychedelic mushrooms for further enquiry and drug maturation .
“ charming mushrooms are the gaudy source of psilocin and may fill a niche in natural drug development , ” McTaggart enjoin . “ There is yet more to realise about how wizardly mushroom produce other compounds that may bear on a psilocybin experience , and this will be an exciting sphere of research to watch unfold . ”
EntheogensPsilocybin
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