Being in any research group with funding (of course for other research) and a lab with the usual equippment is enough.
Enzymes, vectors, hosts and reagents are always around?
Ok, time - i give you that.
How much time is required for a "proof of principle"? One month max? I'm not talking industrial size production, just the proof of principle! Once this is figured out, you have all the time to enhance
Of course only when you're lucky - like Infundibulum pointed out "simple and straightforward" means in biology "you gonna loose some hair over this".
So what we get out from ncbi and this thread ?
1. AADC
C R Acad Sci III. 1997 May;320(5):349-58. Active rat aromatic-L-amino acid decarboxylase as a fusion protein in Escherichia coli. Jebai F, Thibault J, Krieger M.
I must say, I did't read the full paper - but looks prommising.
Anyways - microorganisms have AADC, like mentioned earlier in my mental masturbations
(m. loti; mlr4653)
So we can agree that the first step, decarboxylation, is not our biggest concern.
2. INMT
Rabbit Lung Indolethylamine N-Methyltransferase cDNA AND GENE CLONING AND CHARACTERIZATION Michael A. Thompson and Richard M. Weinshilboum
Well, those guys used COS1 cells as expression host - [
uh, bad news, DMT seemes to inhibit INMT activity]
But benzyme mentioned some other sources, p. tuberosa...
I think it would be much more confortable using existing cDNA libraries (rat, mice, zebrafish)rather than purify mRNA from lung tissues