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DNA-based taxonomic identification of basidiospores in hallucinogenic mushrooms cultivated in “grow-kits” seized by the police: LC-UV quali-quantitative determination of psilocybin and psilocin. (Viniero et al, June 2016)

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Basically, a group has established a process to ID the tissue and basidiospores of hallucinogenic mushroom species relatively easily using DNA, from spores or spawn media, without having to fruit them.

This is a really big deal, because up until now, it has been virtually impossible for even a professional mycologist to definitively distinguish one species from another, just from the spores or myc. This has probably had a large influence on the way laws are written in many countries (ie  spores are legal but live cultures are not)

in fact, my pug dog knows a goat who got caught with 5 totally colonized cubensis monotubs in a state where cannabis possession has mandatory minimums, a bunch of spore syringes, agar cultures, etc. LE had no idea how it worked and started digging around in the colonized substrate looking for the mushrooms 


fortunately, everything turned green before anything visibly illegal like fruit bodies got the goat cooked. apparently, lawyers have often been able to get people out of trouble sometimes by demanding that the state prove that the fungus was actually an illegal species (which was nearly impossible to do)

spores  are even harder, and i imagine that the difficulty in proving the species of a spore syringe in court (without first having to commit the "crime" of fruiting them), probably plays a large role in the legal status of spores vs cultures

In light of this new DNA-based method and the fact that it is being made available to LE and customs, it would be wrong to assume that a culture or spore sample could not be identified without fruits.

It is important for shroomerites that it is about to become much easier for those who have an interest in proving that a sample is indeed illegal to do so. Do not rely on anyone's inability to ID, as the days of DNA taxonomic ID are here. Know the laws of your country, and stay safe!

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spirit_shadow said:
Dna testing now? You......are NOT the boomer! JERRY! JERRY!

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c10h12n2o said:

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Title:
DNA-based taxonomic identification of basidiospores in hallucinogenic mushrooms cultivated in “grow-kits” seized by the police: LC-UV quali-quantitative determination of psilocybin and psilocin. (Viniero et al, June 2016)

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Basically, a group has established a process to ID the tissue and basidiospores of hallucinogenic mushroom species relatively easily using DNA, from spores or spawn media, without having to fruit them.

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Adden said:
Can't you just KaOH mycelium?

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Alan Rockefeller said:

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c10h12n2o said:

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Title:
DNA-based taxonomic identification of basidiospores in hallucinogenic mushrooms cultivated in “grow-kits” seized by the police: LC-UV quali-quantitative determination of psilocybin and psilocin. (Viniero et al, June 2016)

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Basically, a group has established a process to ID the tissue and basidiospores of hallucinogenic mushroom species relatively easily using DNA, from spores or spawn media, without having to fruit them.

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I read this paper carefully, and there is nothing new in it.  They don't identify the spores at all - they are only testing the mycelium and fruits.    People have been doing the DNA part for over 20 years and the chemical tests for over 60 years.

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Alan Rockefeller said:

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Adden said:
Can't you just KaOH mycelium?

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To extract the DNA and sequence it?

Yes, I do that all the time.  I scrape up some mycelium from a petri dish and get good sequences back. 

A lot of the time when people say they have a "non-fruiting strain", what they actually have is some other fungus with a long name you never heard of, which is super common in soil but never makes any sort of fruiting body.  There are thousands of species like that, they look great on agar or grain, but just never make any mushrooms.

Sometimes people send me agar cultures to sequence to check to see if what they are growing is what they think they have.  Half the time it is, half the time it isn't.

Would be cool to be able to do it right from the print though without having to germinate it.

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chibiabos said:
Name one other paper where somebody used sequence alignments to identify hallucinogenic mushrooms...

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At the very least I call bullshit on the idea that people have been doing it for over twenty years.

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Granted that I only checked the NCBI database, but the earliest sequence I could find using "psilocybe" was published in the database in 2000.  And that was a partial sequence for a gene coding for rRNA.  Either way, I'm not sure what your point is.

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Alan Rockefeller said:

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chibiabos said:
Name one other paper where somebody used sequence alignments to identify hallucinogenic mushrooms...

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http://www.czechmycology.org/_cmo/CM64207.pdf

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At the very least I call bullshit on the idea that people have been doing it for over twenty years.

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Here is one from 16 years ago, and it wasn't the first:  Redhead, Scott A.; Vilgalys, Rytas; Moncalvo, Jean-Marc; Johnson, Jacqui; Hopple Jr., John S (February 2001). "Coprinus Pers. and the disposition of Coprinus species sensu lato". Taxon. 50 (1): 203–41. JSTOR 1224525. doi:10.2307/1224525.

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chibiabos said:
I'm also still curious about what your protocol is for sequencing.

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chibiabos said:
Shouldn't you be running your gel before sequencing anything from your PCR steps?

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