Injury-Triggered Blueing Reactions of Psilocybe “Magic” Mushrooms

[Loveall]

Article attached.

It seems like they identified an enzyme (PsiL) that oxidizes the -OH group, and after that dimers form, followed by dimers and larger groups.

Interested in any opinions. I believe some of these dimers had been proposed before (I remember endlessness mentioning them in chat). I think this is the first time they are verified (?). Cheers.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

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.

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.)