Gene splicing to mass-produce opium?

[MattPsy]

Ergot != LSD. Pray tell, where are you going to get an diethylamidease (not a 'real' name, but used the name it'd presumably have... that or a diethyltransferase) enzyme from?

 

[Roboticwurm]

I'm sorry, you're correct. I misread ergot containing 'small amounts of lysergic acid' as 'small amounts of lysergic acid diethylamide.'

 

[fastandbulbous]

See, now this is going to be a little harder. For starters, LSD isn't found anywhere in nature (that we know of) so you would have to build the enzyme from scratch, something we don't have the technology to do yet, at least clandestinely.

It is possiblre to get C. papalsi to produce LSD in submerged culture by feeding it a limited supply of certain nutrients that replace those found in nature (probably some N,N-diethylamine version of an amino acid so you get LSD rather than LSA produced). Obviously as LSD cannot react further at the amide nitrogen (unlike LSA) it would accumulate rather than being further metabolised to ergotamine etc. How difficult is this? Not a clue, but it has been done


I think MSG has a copy of the paper (he'll thank me for that as he gets deluged with requests! )

 

[nonbeliever]

This one time in biology we inserted 'glow in the dark genes' into bacteria. It can be done, the specifics just need to be looked into. If a class full of 17 year olds can maniulate the genetic make up of an organism then I'm SURE there must be a drug lord or pharma company out there giving it a go.