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Genetically Modified Precursor Plants/Sources

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rogue_eyebrow

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I have been wondering for a long time, why has there (to my limited knowledge) not been any genetic engineering of precursor plants, like coca, saffrole containing plants, even weed?

For instance, for the sake of discussion (a random guess) assume that a natural normal coca plant currently contains 1% useful content, a rogue scientist could engineer a strain of the plant to yield 30% useful content AND grow in a different climate.

This seems like the next logical step for future of drugs to me.

A rogue scientist capable of this shouldn't be too hard to find these days, especially in Asia.

I'm sure with this kind of technology the sky is the limit... In theory I would imagine that one could even engineer a strain of common grass to contain useful alkaloids, just mow your lawn, collect the clippings and avoid detection.

Considering much of the food we currently eat is GM anyway, in the interests of HR what effect might this have health wise?
 
Interesting question.

And even bigger question is how do we know we aren't already consuming drugs from Genetically modified plants? Last time I checked there wasn't a regulatory body like there is for legal cash crops, so I guess we won't know for sure until there is.

In the end the GM crop would still be producing the desired substance wouldn't it? assuming you can seperate it from other susbstances it shouldn't pose a harm.
 
Sameria said:
And even bigger question is how do we know we aren't already consuming drugs from Genetically modified plants? Last time I checked there wasn't a regulatory body like there is for legal cash crops, so I guess we won't know for sure until there is.
Click to expand...

This^^

I'd also like to add that realistically there would not be an alkaloid content jump from say 1% to 30%. It would more likely be only a few percent, which is still a huge increase in overall yield when you are talking about mass production.

As for mowing your lawn for drugs...

Phalaris Grass - DMT

Welcome to Bluelight rogue eyebrowe :)
 
Very interesting subject. I believe they are doing so in certain places with cannabis.

I imagine the lack of research into psychoactive plants stems from the lack of knowledge [or acceptance] of these plants as containing therapeutic chemicals.
 
Very good counter-question. Hmmm, the reason I suspect that this has yet to be in operation (at least on a large scale) is that I would anticipate that such a breakthrough would affect the market.

I would expect to see an increase in quality and a decrease in price. Even though both parameters have fluctuated in recent years, I would argue that they have not fluctuated enough since GM technology has emerged to the point it is today - accessible with moderate ease.

In American I've eaten apples that were modified to taste like grapes. They did - EXACTLY like grapes. I have no knowledge to contradict your estimate Psilo (or validate my own) but I would imagine the potential for this technology could be far in excess of a few %.

As I mentioned earlier, even the ability to grow the plants in a different climate could have an immense impact of regional markets.
 
I am no expert on this and this is a great argument to have in the forum.

I just can't see how an alkaloid content jump of 30x is at all possible. An increase in yield could be big, but not a large increase in overall alkaloid content. Take DMT containing plants for example, most have an alkaloid content of less than 1% and if this was increased to 30% it would be 30% of the plants mass. It just doesn't gel in my mind, but I'm open to debate

For most GM crops, the increase in yield is only a few percent. There is also the added increases due to pest resistance and other things which makes for larger yields. An increase of a couple of percent could be tonnes over every acre, this is still big.

Imagine coca plants that were resistant to pests, had an alkaloid content of 3% more and yielded another few percent in mass over every acre. That would be a massive increase in production as a whole.

I'll come back to this when I have more time
 
I would imagine that there are specific limitations to increasing alkaloids in plants over a particular threshold as its possible that over a certain concentration the alkaloids could become toxic to the plants producing them.

If you had the technological expertise to be genetically manipulating organisms for drug production i would think that the emphasis would be to produce pre-cursors (and drugs themselves) in a more covert manner by engineering bacteria and yeasts to produce them (similar to the way we produce vitamin C now), your production facilities would never have to see the light of day, you would have minimal electricity costs and heat leakage and you could produce tons of gear with over the counter fertilisers and food stock...

What you have to take into account is that genetically engineering anything takes years of research using very specialised equipment that are usually only found in large labs at universities. People with the expertise to do that sort of work aren't as numerous as you think, and most of them wouldnt have the contact or the inclination to go down the criminal route. That said, it would only take one William Pickard of the biology world to blow the field wide open, it only takes one bacteria to produce a billion.

Oh and Psilo - i think they would look at making coca plants herbcide resistant before they would make them pest resistant ;)
 
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I'm a research scientist and published author with a PhD in plant genetic engineering. The simple answer for your question is that it that genetic engineering is extremely expensive, time-consuming and difficult.

I'm currently working on a project with aims to significantly increase the yield of certain commercially valuable crops. The project employs approximately 30 post-doctoral scientists and is funded by a multi-million dollar federal grant in addition to private industry funding. Even with this high level of funding and expertise there are a number roadblocks which prevent this kind of technology being readily applied.

What I'm refering to is modern-era biotechnology. Essentially humans have been genetically engineering plants, in a more traditional way, for tens of thousands of years. Think about it, say a farmer has a high yielding crop and he uses it to selectively breed - that is genetic engineering! You'll actually find that the majority of agriculture we know today is a direct result of human genetic engineering.

As far as applying scientific knowledge for criminal purposes, the scientist would have to be in contact with some large scale criminal organisations in order for the endevour to be possible. I think the feasibility of this is debatable.
 
Thanks for the insight bunt.

Can you give us any answer on increasing alkaloid contents in plants and maybe a rough percentage for a certain species?

BTW there are plenty of scientists in contact with large scale criminal organizations and there is plenty of money within these organizations. It may be worth the money and effort if there was a good chance of a high return on the investment.
 
From a genetic engineering perspective, increasing alkaloid levels in a plant can be relatively simple since the plant has already naturally evolved the mechanisms to produce it. To produce an alkaloid a number of intersecting biochemical pathways interact, some pathways result in the production of alkaloid and its precursors and others result in the blocking or regulation of these.

The classic metabolic engineering approach is to basically 'knock-out' particular biochemical mechanisms which negatively regulate alkaloid levels. This type of engineering is already being used today by inducing an RNAi response (RNA interference, see 2007 Nobel Prize) using hairpin constructs. Knocking out negative regulators has also been able to achieve surprisingly successful results, some recent studies have managed to double the yield of a desired product. Although this won't hold true for every example (it is biology after all), any increase in yield above 10% is considered a significant improvement.

So basically what you proposed is quite achievable, it's mostly a matter of finding a scientist willing to commit career suicide for quick cash and having the resources to do it.
 
Great posts bunt, thanks.

I studied some bio-tech applications in green chemistry. One that particularly interested me was work done by Frost and Draths, where a DNA altered strain of E.Coli had the glucose -->tryptophan pathway modified to instead produce catechol, DMS and adipic acid, the latter which is used in the synthesis of nylon 6.6.
 
bunt said:
What I'm refering to is modern-era biotechnology. Essentially humans have been genetically engineering plants, in a more traditional way, for tens of thousands of years. Think about it, say a farmer has a high yielding crop and he uses it to selectively breed - that is genetic engineering! You'll actually find that the majority of agriculture we know today is a direct result of human genetic engineering.
Click to expand...

Awesome posts, I love this sort of thing. Virtually every plant in Urban Horticulture in addition to agriculture and Forestry too! Genetic selection and Hybridization is thoroughly entrenched in anything to do with plants. From the moment someone collected seed from a particularly nice flowing/fruiting plant when we were living in caves in France before modern man.


On topic: Yeah Poppies grown in Tasmania and Hemp farms throughout the world would definitely be selections. There probably is tonnes of research done by the big pharm companies but it would all be pretty confidential. Completely patented and protected information like the way Monsanto has operated over the years.
 
I've heard from a bloke i used to know who was at uni doing that sort of stuff that it was possible to genetically modify algae to create anything you wanted from MDMA to pretty much anything you can think of because they are such a simple organism. I dno hjow much truth there is in that but a pretty cool idea
 
It's most definately possible to express any foreign gene in a range of species. The biggest problem which has been plaguing researchers for decades (referred to as 'the elephant in the room' by my boss) is the stability of expressing such a trait. Obviously when you insert foreign DNA into an organism it has evolved natural mechanisms to prevent that DNA from being expressed.

At this current state of play, limited technology addresses this issue since it has been swept under the rug by many researchers for many years. Having said that, considerate effort is now being directed to achieve stable transgene expression.

Within 10 years from now - you name the protein you want and it will be able acquire acceptable yields in a species of choice. The technology is progressing so fast that even within that time period we'll be doing stuff you wouldn't even be able to imagine...
 
so your saying within 10yrs, scientists can get any plent to produce mdma just like that eh?

Thats kinda cool. How about a plant that has both mdma and cocaine in it. haha.

HEAVENNNNNNNNNNNNNn!
 
Can we please GM a common garden weed to contain a large amount of recoverable high quality Safrole rich oil.

Ta.
 
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