Flutterby™! : Hallucinogenic E. Coli

E. coli Could Produce a Popular Psychedelic for Therapeutic Use

“The number-one advantage is it's simply cheaper” than—or at least cost-competitive with—other methods, says lead study author Alexandra Adams, an undergraduate student in chemical engineering at Miami University in Ohio. Furthermore, “it's easier to manipulate E. coli than other organisms,” she says.

Adams and her colleagues engineered E. coli that incorporated three genes from the Psilocybe cubensis mushroom, enabling the bacteria to synthesize psilocybin from the cheap and easily obtainable precursor molecule 4-hydroxyindole, and then they optimized the process to produce the drug on a larger scale. They reported their results last December in Metabolic Engineering.