this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 74 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

"Biosynthetic gene mining of the L. asiatica genome found no close hits with any genes known in the production of mushroom psychoactive compounds," write the researchers in their published paper.

"This supports our hypothesis of the presence of a novel unidentified metabolite responsible for the unique hallucinogenic properties of L. asiatica."

Yeah. No known hallucinogens.

[–] DougPiranha42@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

Exactly. Or even- no known hallucinogens synthesized by their canonical biochemical pathways by enzymes expressed from the host species genome.
The OG hallucinogen, ergot, is ingested by eating wheat. If one presumed that the substance is made by wheat, and mined the wheat genome, they would never find the genes for its synthesis, because the hallucinogen is made by mold growing on the wheat.
It’s very rare you can draw a strong conclusion from negative results.