Opiates can also be made from sugar

From opium poppy not only illegal drugs such as opium or heroin, but also opiates for medical use are won. Researchers have now found a way to get morphine, codeine and other opium poppy from microorganisms. The new findings could be interesting for the pharmaceutical industry - but also for drug producers.

Researchers made base substance for opiates with yeast
Morphine, codeine and other opium poppy substances can be extracted from microorganisms, according to scientists. For the first time, researchers have now produced the basic substance for opiates with yeast. They have, according to a news agency dpa, brewers yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) with entrained enzymes to produce from glucose the opium poppy substance reticulin, which is the precursor of many opiates and other drugs. As the team around John Dueber of the University of California at Berkeley writes in the journal "Nature Chemical Biology", the biotechnological production of such substances is only a matter of time. In a comment, experts warned that this would also facilitate the illicit production of many drugs and therefore demanded state control of such yeast strains.

Poppy seed from sugar. Picture: Zerbor / fotolia

Further steps to morphine just a formality
It is reported that the scientists sought a way to make so-called benzylisoquinolines (BIAs) of microorganisms. In addition to opiates such as morphine or codeine, these substances in the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) also include antibiotics, the anticonvulsant drug papaverine or cancer drugs. Scientists used a glucose derivative to produce the opium poppy reticulum by equipping the yeast with enzymes such as sugar beet (Beta vulgaris). According to her, the further steps to morphine or other substances are more formality.

"Feed yeast with a cheap source of sugar"
In a statement from his university, the biotechnologist Dueber is quoted as saying, "Actually, in fermentation, one wants to feed the yeast with a cheap source of sugar and let them do all the chemical steps needed to obtain the target substance." He further explained, "With our study Now all the steps have been described, and all that is left is to bring them together and increase production. "Microbiologist Vincent Martin of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, said:" Reticulin is crucial because from then on, the molecular steps are towards Production of codeine and morphine by yeast already described. "

Study is considered groundbreaking
In a "Nature" commentary, Pamela Peralta-Yahya of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, described the study as groundbreaking: "This work opens the door to making complex BIAs directly from glucose." Hefe said the preferred host organism for the production of herbal active substances and is well suited for industrial production. The researchers emphasized, however, that the production process could pose new challenges for regulators because it would allow them to produce their own opiates or other legally regulated substances within a few years.

Morphine from illegal cultivation
State regulation is demanded by three scientists in another "Nature" commentary. Morphine is currently being produced from opium poppy, which is being grown illegally, especially in Afghanistan, Mexico, Laos and Myanmar, according to the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT / USA) and the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Morphine is used, among other things, for pain relief in severe pain, such as tumors, as well as chronic pain of various origins, but also abused as a drug. With the new technology, the market can be centralized in the future. "In principle, anyone with access to the yeast strain and basic knowledge of fermentation could use a home kit to brew morphine-producing yeast for brewing," the researchers warn.

Number of drug users could rise
According to the report, around 16 million people worldwide are supposed to consume illegal opiates worldwide. The number could thus increase with easier access and falling prices. Opiate addiction is also a problem in this country. Drug addiction is now planned to improve substitution therapy, as recently reported. Because of the imminent dangers, commentators demanded that the new yeast strains be monitored and made available only to licensed researchers. However, Duebner finds that difficult: "Once knowledge about how to create an opiate-producing strain is out there, theoretically anyone with basic knowledge of molecular biology can do that." (Ad)