Great that they've confirmed the structure I suggested - not necessarily to the scientists involved - 12 years ago
(I have evidence!) and the enzymology ices the cake nicely.
Quote: dimers form, followed by dimers and larger groups.
*trimers, tetramers. With the higher oligomers they've taken the idea further than my suggestion. It's not unexpected to see that the additional cross-linking takes place in the positions they found.
All-in-all, a good piece of work that answers a long-standing question.
The attached structures were drawn in 2007. (It's the 5,5-dimer that forms first and cross-linking occurs in the 2 and 7 positions, using the conventional tryptamine numbering scheme. The numbering scheme used in the paper is different as it was more convenient for their C-13 NMR study of the dimerisation kinetics.)
downwardsfromzero attached the following image(s):
2dimer.jpg
(10kb) downloaded 37 time(s). 5dimer.jpg
(10kb) downloaded 36 time(s). 7dimer.jpg
(10kb) downloaded 36 time(s). “There is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."
― Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli