Abstract

The psychotropic effects of Psilocybe “magic” mushrooms are caused by the L‐tryptophan‐derived alkaloid psilocybin. Despite their significance, the secondary metabolome of these fungi is poorly understood in general. Our analysis of four Psilocybe species identified harmane, harmine, and a range of other L‐tryptophan‐derived β‐carbolines as their natural products, which was confirmed by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy. Stable‐isotope labeling with 13C11‐L‐tryptophan verified the β‐carbolines as biosynthetic products of these fungi. In addition, MALDI‐MS imaging showed that β‐carbolines accumulate toward the hyphal apices. As potent inhibitors of monoamine oxidases, β‐carbolines are neuroactive compounds and interfere with psilocybin degradation. Therefore, our findings represent an unprecedented scenario of natural product pathways that diverge from the same building block and produce dissimilar compounds, yet contribute directly or indirectly to the same pharmacological effects.

Very interesting, but if I read it correctly, the amount of carbolines is very small to really contribute to the effects.

Even basic potency data we have on the Psilocybe genus is out of date, in the past having used old, dried samples which likely were degraded, and these days we have access to higher precision analytical techniques. So definitely more work to be done here...we don't yet even have clear data on whether psilocybin analogue baeocystin is active in humans or not.

Another question that has come up is mannitol. It's present in mushrooms and can affect the blood-brain barrier osmosis. We have a thread suggesting to add mannitol to mushrooms to see if anything changes (kicked off because of some experiments done in rats).