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Offlinenomadbrad
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Where do the chemicals come from.
    #18048263 - 04/02/13 06:26 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

I have been really trying to wrap my mind around this, maybe it's too much for a layman like me but here it goes....

I've been under the impression that mushrooms have a lot of different chemicals and toxins present in the fruiting bodies.  My question is... Do they really just synthesize these from whatever they come across in the substrate they grow in???  Maybe I've been under the wrong impression, maybe they are not as complex in chemical make up as I thought. 

Chemistry is not my forte but I would really love it if somebody could break it down a bit for me.  That way I don't automatically jump to an alien conspiracy or something from the twilight zone if you know what I mean...

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Offlinementalpatient
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: nomadbrad]
    #18048328 - 04/02/13 06:38 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quite an interesting question. They must convert the nutrients into chemicals or something... The psychoactive compounds must come from somewhere...


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InvisibleIveBeenRecycled
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: mentalpatient]
    #18048402 - 04/02/13 06:50 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)



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OfflineKizzle
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: IveBeenRecycled]
    #18048539 - 04/02/13 07:16 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Do they really just synthesize these from whatever they come across in the substrate they grow in???



Pretty much. They release enzymes to break down the substrate into basic nutrients they can absorb and then create whatever more complex chemicals they need from those basic building blocks. With the right enzymes they can turn carbohdyrates and amino acids into something like psilocybin.


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Offlinementalpatient
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Kizzle]
    #18048690 - 04/02/13 07:45 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Crazy to think how all this came about naturally in the beginning. The way I can imagine it, all living/growing things had their DNA brewed in some hot cauldron resulting in thousands of different DNA combinations resulting in different forms of living organisms.


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Edited by mentalpatient (04/02/13 07:45 PM)

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InvisibleAmphibolos
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: mentalpatient]
    #18048705 - 04/02/13 07:49 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

The more plausible hypothesis is that the RNA's are the precursor of complex life

DNA itself cant catalyse its own synthesis, but RNA have sometime the role of an enzyme.


DNA is more like a complex and stable information storage.


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Offlinementalpatient
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Amphibolos]
    #18048725 - 04/02/13 07:53 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Amphibolos said:
The more plausible hypothesis is that the RNA's are the precursor of complex life



Oh yeah, I remember reading about RNA. Very interesting stuff.


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Offlinenomadbrad
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Kizzle]
    #18048759 - 04/02/13 07:59 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Kizzle said:
Quote:

Do they really just synthesize these from whatever they come across in the substrate they grow in???



Pretty much. They release enzymes to break down the substrate into basic nutrients they can absorb and then create whatever more complex chemicals they need from those basic building blocks. With the right enzymes they can turn carbohdyrates and amino acids into something like psilocybin.




They restructure the amino acids and basic nutrients into others, I understand that much.  I just don't understand why and why so much complexity. It's crazy to really think hard about.  Muscimol, ibotenic acid, psilocybin.  And on top of that you throw in how they make humans react. 

I want to learn how these enzymes really work.

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Offlinementalpatient
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: nomadbrad]
    #18048829 - 04/02/13 08:11 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Bet you could spend every night of every day of every week of every month of every year learning about this stuff. It's so complex and multifaceted. :smile:


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Edited by mentalpatient (04/02/13 08:11 PM)

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Offlineraygle29
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: mentalpatient]
    #18056211 - 04/04/13 05:32 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Metabolism can roughly be broken down into two halves: catabolism and anabolism. Catabolism is the process of breaking complex molecules into simpler ones and anabolism is the construction of complex molecules from simple ones. Just about every organism has the same "simple ones" (i.e. intermediates), but what they can build out of those simple molecules is determined by the enzymes that an organism knows how to make.

On the way to catabolizing glucose, various intermediate forms of it get formed. One such intermediate is phosphoenolpyruvate and another common one is erythrose-4-phosphate. We make these constantly in our own bodies, but since humans don't have a lot of cool biosynthetic enzymes available to us we can't do much interesting with them other than send them to the Krebs cycle and eventually oxidize them to CO2 for energy. Plants, fungus, and bacteria, however, have enzymes that can take PEP and E4P and orient them relative to each other in such a way that they can condense into the next intermediate, and through a number of other steps eventually form tryptophan and indole and other cool things. Most of the time, though, they will just oxidize these intermediates for energy like we do.

Basically, whether you are a fungus or a human, you have a lot of the same biochemical intermediates. If you're a fungus, you have some options to turn extra intermediates into cool organic molecules. If you're human, you use those extra intermediates for extra energy, to do some pretty cool feats of physical chemistry - like develop and maintain the ion gradients necessary for consciousness.

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Offlinenomadbrad
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: raygle29]
    #18056523 - 04/04/13 07:54 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

raygle29 said:
Metabolism can roughly be broken down into two halves: catabolism and anabolism. Catabolism is the process of breaking complex molecules into simpler ones and anabolism is the construction of complex molecules from simple ones. Just about every organism has the same "simple ones" (i.e. intermediates), but what they can build out of those simple molecules is determined by the enzymes that an organism knows how to make.

On the way to catabolizing glucose, various intermediate forms of it get formed. One such intermediate is phosphoenolpyruvate and another common one is erythrose-4-phosphate. We make these constantly in our own bodies, but since humans don't have a lot of cool biosynthetic enzymes available to us we can't do much interesting with them other than send them to the Krebs cycle and eventually oxidize them to CO2 for energy. Plants, fungus, and bacteria, however, have enzymes that can take PEP and E4P and orient them relative to each other in such a way that they can condense into the next intermediate, and through a number of other steps eventually form tryptophan and indole and other cool things. Most of the time, though, they will just oxidize these intermediates for energy like we do.

Basically, whether you are a fungus or a human, you have a lot of the same biochemical intermediates. If you're a fungus, you have some options to turn extra intermediates into cool organic molecules. If you're human, you use those extra intermediates for extra energy, to do some pretty cool feats of physical chemistry - like develop and maintain the ion gradients necessary for consciousness.




Ok, that was really helpful.  Way to break it down a little bit easier for me to understand.  So basically fungi have a tool chest of enzymes that can break down and then restructure molecules into more complex ones? 

This might be a stretch but I am curious as to what the fungi use some of these restructured molecules for.  Can anybody point me in that direction?  Any links that chime in on this stuff??

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OfflineNobitte
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: nomadbrad]
    #18056571 - 04/04/13 08:12 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Raygle1 really nailed it.

Without knowing what molecule in particular you're interested in, and assuming that you want to know about how chemistry works in biological systems, I would suggest getting your hands on some first/second year biology, mycology and biochem texts. They should have most of the answers you're looking for.

Alternatively, you could always try and make it into a career, there are a few universities in the US that im aware of and probably many more that offer courses that might be enlightening, but in light of the fact that you probably can't get public higher education funding, the books might be the better option.

There would be a few posts suggesting decent mycology texts on this website.

Good luck, whatever you do =3.


--------------------
First we must learn...

Then... WE CAN TEACH :weirdeyes:

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OfflineTerry M
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Nobitte]
    #18056749 - 04/04/13 09:31 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Great answers here! The short answer is that all living things are biochemical factories.


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Offlinenomadbrad
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Terry M]
    #18058641 - 04/04/13 04:50 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Nobitte, thanks for the advice.  I live by a major university and I am sure I could track down some text books on that.  That's a great idea.

As far as making a career out of it, we'll, right now I can't.  I'm taking over my fathers business so he can retire.  I figure that's the least I can do.  I certainly could afford it later on in life, so it will probably just end up as an extreme hobby where it is now.

I've never liked chemistry. Now that I love mycology it's just second nature. 

I feel like a five year old asking "why? Why? Why?"  Ha!

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Offlineraygle29
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Terry M]
    #18058828 - 04/04/13 05:20 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Organic chemistry is key if you want to understand how enzymes really work. Its actually pretty dry :smile: part of the molecule interacts with a charged atom on the enzyme, which redistributes charge density to allow formation of an otherwise unstable transition state. The transition state is attacked by a pair of electrons from another atom on the enzyme and another molecule is formed... or it all goes in reverse and nothing happens this time, but there are 10^15 tries in a second so something still gets formed. :smile:

Its tough to pin down evolutionary roles for secondary metabolites that aren't antibiotics or hormones/auxins. Its kind of obvious why penicillin grants an evolutionary advantage, given that it kills microorganisms which would otherwise eat the mould's food. Truffles emit a molecule also found in male pig saliva, which makes it attractive to female pigs in heat - which is important since it relies on animals to find it underground and transport its spores in order to reproduce. Its hard to pin down how being psychadelic gives an evolutionary advantage though. Psilocybin is much older than humans, so simply being appealing as an agricultural product isn't a sufficient explanation for its persistence. A lot of stuff in biology and evolution makes sense, but sometimes there are just weird connections that do weird things when they interact with the foundation of something as complex as human consciousness and you just have to marvel at the miracle of it all.

Instead of just being random though, it helps to keep in mind that the tree of life is always changing and more species have gone extinct than we will ever really know about, or be able to understand on the molecular level that we can understand what is going on around us and within us now. Perhaps one of the psilocybes' greatest predators is extinct now, but maybe that predator utilized a distant cousin of our 5HTa receptor for something important and psilocybin happened to exert a particularly toxic effect on its physiology. Most serotonin in our bodies is actually used in neurons in our digestive tract, so maybe it made this proposed predator very ill. Enter our modern day 5HTa receptors, with similar binding properties but part of a much different physiological machine - so instead of our physiology being fatally compromised we just trip. Will we ever find a fossil of that extinct predator? Unlikely, and even if we did would we be able to clone its pseudo-5HTa receptor and find out what effect psilocybin has on its gastric motility? Never! It is gone and lost forever to extinction.

I figure a lot of answers to evolutionary questions like this follow a similar pattern... we weren't there and the actors that were there are gone now. Maybe the psilocybin we enjoy today is the last remnant of a long-forgotten battle between prey and a predator we will never know. It is a loss to be sure, but there is nothing to be done about it now except enjoy the miraculous accident of pharmacology it is to us today!

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Offlinenomadbrad
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: raygle29]
    #18059212 - 04/04/13 06:23 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Raygle, that seems like a pretty logical hypothesis to me.  It certainly would be cool to be able find out what the extinct predator was.  Do you suppose that maybe it made a predator feel good and therefore was spreading its spores everywhere??

After sometime I am surprised that the psilocybes would still go through the trouble to produce the toxin.  Although because it still has the active component, these mushrooms are cultivated and propagated even further. 

Have you seen the documentary "Botany of Desire"?  It talks a lot about species using humans for this same reason.  It is a well done documentary actually.

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Offlineraygle29
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: nomadbrad]
    #18059682 - 04/04/13 07:58 PM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Your guess is as good as mine, nomadbrad. If it was a defense against predators I think it would make them sick and inclined to avoid that species again, providing a survival advantage rather than a reproductive one. If there is a predator today that exhibits some kind of adverse GI response to psilocybin that could be a clue. I'm not sure those studies have been done yet though, but based on the wide distribution of psilocybes across the continents it would have been a long, long time ago. Sometimes things get in there and don't go away though.

I haven't seen the documentary but read the book. Really liked it and made me think about it like that. THC content in cannabis has reached two extremes recently (as in, less than a lifetime) due to strong selection, but psilocybin hasn't had this same artificial selection applied to it. It would be a bad candidate if they wrote a Mycology of Desire. :smile:

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Offlinekinkaku
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Amphibolos]
    #18060681 - 04/05/13 12:05 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Amphibolos said:
The more plausible hypothesis is that the RNA's are the precursor of complex life

DNA itself cant catalyse its own synthesis, but RNA have sometime the role of an enzyme.


DNA is more like a complex and stable information storage.




where can I read about this information? sounds like a very interesting read


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OfflineNobitte
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: raygle29]
    #18060783 - 04/05/13 12:47 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

I've also been similarly of the mind that psilocybin/5HT agonists could be a 'ghost of competition past'.

Their distribution suggests some sort of speciation event before the breakup of Gondwanaland (at least that's what is see when I look at the global patterns of Psilocybe distribution compared to other taxa(that are considered to be relicts) at the genus level).

In my mind at least, this lends credence to the idea that Psilocye is likely to have an ancient origin and to the possibility that it could be at relative equilibrium with its predator species, purely imagination/speculation though.

It had occurred to me previously that it might be a similar selective dispersal mechanism to capsaicin with birds and mammals (causes irritation in mammals but not birds, to facilitate successful dispersal).

I think it would be interesting to see if invertebrates/molluscs (think slugs, snails and gnats for the moment) etc are able to pass viable fungal spores after consuming a sporocarp. I would assume, but I don't know that they would lack some of the receptors necessary for it to have a profound physiological effect on them, thus making them ideal vectors for dispersal in sequestrate species.

Although im not entirely sure on what sort of advantage this would infer on non-sequestrate taxa, as I would guess that they already had anemochory(wind) and hydrochory(water) fairly nailed, do they really need zoochory, facilitated by sporocarp consumption(my only thought is that it increases the chance that the spore finds itself in a suitable substrate, but would that occur if the organism was a mycovore?).

*shrug*

Quote:

kinkaku said:
Quote:

Amphibolos said:
The more plausible hypothesis is that the RNA's are the precursor of complex life

DNA itself cant catalyse its own synthesis, but RNA have sometime the role of an enzyme.


DNA is more like a complex and stable information storage.




where can I read about this information? sounds like a very interesting read




Lol sorry to repeat myself, but I would say check out the first chapter of a biochem text and then have a read about nucleotides.

As previously said by someone clearly a lot smarter than I, RNA is less 'durable' but can form enzymes/catalysts, DNA is more stable making it ideal for the long term storage of information.


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First we must learn...

Then... WE CAN TEACH :weirdeyes:

Edited by Nobitte (04/05/13 12:50 AM)

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OfflineKizzle
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Re: Where do the chemicals come from. [Re: Nobitte]
    #18060914 - 04/05/13 01:44 AM (11 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Its hard to pin down how being psychadelic gives an evolutionary advantage though.



I know that's the natural assumption but maybe it doesn't. If it were would it make sense to take an extra step to convert psilocin into psilocybin which is inactive until metabolized?

There are other properties to consider. Maybe the blue bruising gave it some kind of advantage. Or maybe the products it breaks down into triggers some kind of response in a damaged area. :shrug:


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