Mucismol/ibotenic acid determination

[Skorpio]

I am interested in a chemical method to detect ibotenic acid or muscimol in a solution, as the yellow muscaria in my region look like some other amanitas, such as flaviconia and rubescens occasionally, and I want a more explicit method of identification than physical characteristics. Chemical identification of the actives allows for binary identification of the species.

Does anyone know of any simple reagent tests to perform that would identify the compounds? Are there any tests that would identify the isoxazol moiety in the molecules?

 

[Solipsis]

Don't rely on a reagent to check for isoxazols if you can't really know if other Amanita's contain any isoxazole compounds and don't eat it if you can't afford to make the mistake. If you don't care to possibly make the mistake then go ahead, but you are basing your choice on the wrong things in my opinion.

Hunt for other varieties of Muscaria or order them if you can't find another 'safe' solution.

Muscimol seems like enough of a strange substance on its own without mixups.

 

[d1nach]

Perhaps one might benefit if they keep their experiments and what they consume separate. For example you could hunt for these and practice identifying them and just not consume them. Even Collect Many types of mushrooms not just psychoactive ones and just practice studying them.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I have an idea. Look into amavadine. Fly agaric at least, and thus it would not surprise me, if other related fungi in the genus Amanita, which reside within the Muscaria clade, also may. But A.muscaria sequesters massive quantities of vanadium in the form of an oxo-complex by the name of amavadine. It would take a little tweaking I am sure to get a test out of it, if possible, would be fun to try anyhow. But the complex can turn an intense, deep blue color, when present in the form of the anion in solution. Never tried to isolate it in solid form however.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amavadin

I have, however seen it in action. Prepared an extract of fly agaric, when I was very, very very little, maybe 4-5 years old, and I was afraid to go and take the plunge an ingest any. I kept it though for a while, pondering if I should. And before it went 'off' and started to get nasty and bacterially contaminated, my god the color was beautiful. Deep, deep blue, like oldschool cobalt glass. At the time of course I could not simply login to bluelight, or The Hive, an ask, nor do research quickly with the data online at my fingertips. So ponder I did for years. And it seems like A.muscaria bioaccumulates vanadium and stores it in the form of this complex. For what reason, is not yet fully known. But possible enzymatic or enzyme cofactor properties. Seems like the levels in the fungus massively outmatch those in the soil proximal to the habitat of the specific patch(es) of fungi. And relative to other fungi in the genus Amanita, A.muscaria can concentrate vanadium to over 400x (in average soil) relative to other Amanitas.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...e&q=amavadine levels Amanita muscaria&f=false


Fantastic mushroom, it really is. Although it goes without saying that one MUST be ABSOLUTELY certain of the species one intends to consume. For amongst the Amanitaceae are some of the most lethal, and most slow, vicious and sadistic, brutal ways to die horribly over maybe a week to almost two.

Fortunately Amanita muscaria is an easy species to identify.
There are just a few cautions, and a few things one should heed and remember, respectively.

Namely, to avoid the other members of the Amanita subsection Amanita. Especially the one known as the panther cap, panther mushroom, or the panther; Amanita pantherina. This superficially resembles the blusher, Amanita rubescens, which is a good edible species (although the blusher must NEVER be eaten raw. It is not psychoactive, raw or otherwise, but contains a toxin, rubescenslysin, which is a haemolytic poison (meaning, that it destroys red blood cells, which can result in kidney damage as the kidneys get flooded with, not to put too fine a point on it, but shite. The breakdown products of lysed red cellls, in addition to the decrement in oxygen carrying capacity, resulting in acute haemolytic anaemia. To prepare this species the youngish caps are the best. They stay nice and firm when being put through the thorough cooking needed to serve this species for the table. Rubescenslysin is thermolabile, and cooking destabilizes it. Nevertheless, it is boiled first in water, the water is then thrown away and fresh water added to replace it, the process is repeated and again the water is thrown away. Then after these two parboilings, the blusher is then cooked in the manner that it is to be served, and thence added to the dish.)

There is another lookalike of a sort that can be confused with some of the brown looking variants of A.muscaria, but only when someone is pretty inexperienced. This, is the panther cap. A.pantherina. It looks somewhat like the blusher (A.rubescens) and like fly agaric, it contains muscimol, ibotenic acid, only at levels FAR in excess of that in fly agaric. It should not be used as a substituted though, it can be strong enough to be quite dangerous and it has caused fatalities. In addition there are other toxins, which although present in far smaller quantities relative to the ibotenate/muscimol they are active in extraordinarily tiny (femtomolar) concentrations, Action is glutamatergic excitotoxic most likely. Stizolobic and stizolobinic acids. These are present in much smaller quantities rhan the muscimol content and ibotenic acid (itself nasty, an NMDA areceptor agonist) although thankfully unstable, decomposing into muscimol via thermal decarboxylation.