Hieronymous said:
I've only skimmed this thread so apologies if I'm off the mark.
A large part of this discussion regarding mushrooms seems to focus on the alkaloids present in the fruit bodies of the mushrooms, are there any known metabolic pathways that could utilise mycelium to produce DMT as a metabolite excreted from the mycelium ?
ie could mycelium be doped with a precursor to produce alkaloids as a waste product that doesn't appear in the fruit bodies ?
Psilocin = 4-HO-DMT. Psilocybin = 4-PO-DMT.
It is theorised that DMT is an intermediary product of the
mushroom's biosynthesis of Psilocin & Psilocybin, but that is theory and no more.
AFAIK DMT has never been found in magic mushrooms.
That COULD be because, for instance, the DMT produced by mushrooms gets so quickly converted into Psilocin & Psilocybin that DMT levels never build up to the quantity where it becomes detectable by chemical analysis.
So even assuming DMT indeed IS an intermediary product in the mushroom's process of making 4-HO-DMT & 4-PO-DMT, you would somehow have to shut down the enzymes that 4-hydroxilise Tryptamines and the enzymes that 4-Phosphoryloxy-ate Tryptamines. Then you MIGHT get DMT containing mushrooms, but even if that is enzymatically possible the question remains wether the mushrooms could still grow & survive without these enzymes.
That in itself is already a long-shot, let alone making mushrooms/mycelium excrete DMT.
Talking about DMT excretions: I was talking about DMT plants & fiddling around with their Enzymes with a friend of mine who studies Biochemistry. I was suggesting taking an easy & fast growing DMT-producing plant, like Phalaris, & significantly raising it's DMT content by feeding it nutrients that would boost the enzymatic activity of the Enzymes it uses to biosynth DMT. This guy is also learning alot about genes. Learning to splice DNA, RNA, Isolate components of cells, basic genetic manipulations...etc
He suggested that this could be done by taking out or significantly surpressing the inhibiting factors that normally limit the speed of DMT production & the quantity of DMT produced in these plants. Basically making their DMT-producing mechanism go double or triple speed & power... If that could be done effectively, the plants may indeed become so DMT-rich that after a certain point DMT would "proliferate" the plant matter and be excreted in the surfaces of it's leaves, stems, flowers...etc.
But that is a different topic altogether. Fascinating, but different from this topic, which is to feed Psilocybin Mushrooms unusual Tryptamines in hopes they enzymatically turn these into unusual analogues of Psilocin & Psilocybin.