Yeast has learned how to make cannabinoids
Including those used only for medical purposes
Maxim Abdulaev, "The Attic"
Scientists have created a yeast strain that synthesizes the main cannabinoids, including the precursors of tetrahydrocannabinol – a psychoactive substance responsible for the characteristic effect of marijuana use – and cannabidiol, a substance without a psychoactive effect, but helping with epileptic seizures.
Article by Luo et al. Complete biosynthesis of cannabinoids and their unnatural analogues in yeast is published in the journal Nature, a press release of Yeast produce low-cost, high-quality cannabinoids is available on the UC Berkeley – VM website.
Cannabis and its products are increasingly being legalized in the world. In addition to Uruguay and Canada, the production, trafficking and use of marijuana are legal for both medical and recreational purposes, in 10 US states and the District of Columbia. In the Netherlands, use is legal and production and turnover are limited. In some other countries, the use of marijuana has been decriminalized, although possession, production and trafficking are prosecuted by law – for example, in Georgia.
Some substances that are formed in cannabis plants have valuable medical properties, such as cannabidiol, which reduces the frequency of epileptic seizures and has an anti-inflammatory effect. In general, the issue of large-scale and cheap production of active substances that cannabis is valuable has become important. And yeast came in handy here.
Yeast is often used to produce something that is not peculiar to them. In microscopic fungi, genes are inserted that are necessary to create chains of enzymes that will synthesize the desired product, such as insulin. The use of genetically modified yeast makes it possible to establish the industrial production of the necessary substances, since yeast is a well-known, tamed mushroom that has been making various products for it for several millennia (fermenting sugars into ethyl alcohol).
Scientists had to tinker to get yeast to play the role of cannabis. First, they used the genes of the enzymes of cannabis itself, transferred to yeast so that they could produce olivetolic acid from the sugar galactose. They succeeded, but then it was necessary to turn olivetolic acid into cannabigerolic acid – the precursor of all cannabinoids. The enzyme that does this in cannabis itself didn't want to work in yeast. The scientists had to try several enzymes similar in function to bacteria and hops (a close relative of cannabis) and rummage through the databases of decoded transcriptomes of cannabis itself. Among the fragments of cannabis DNA, scientists found the gene of a previously unknown enzyme that could make cannabigerolic acid and at the same time worked in yeast.
The rest of the cannabis genes took root well, and scientists built a chain that led from cannabigerolic acid to tetrahydrocannabinolic and cannabidiolic acids. These acids are already easily converted into THC and CBD in the sun and in heat, even by "gravity".
According to the authors of the study, the production of pure substances using yeast will make it possible to better investigate them and produce medicinal (and non-medicinal) drugs of higher quality based on them. In addition, the cost of producing "hemp mushrooms" is lower than ordinary hemp.
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