Irony Lost on Scientists Working to Create Drugs in Mushrooms

For researchers working to turn mushrooms into drug factories, someone should inform them that the secret's been out for a few years now.

Actually, we're talking about beneficial pharmaceuticals here, and not just hallucinogenics.

Scientists at Penn State University have developed a clever trick to get transgenic DNA into the button mushroom; one of the most common edible varieties out there. These mutant mushrooms could then be turned into drug factories, pumping out vaccines, insulin, or even biofuels in a fraction of the time it takes with plants.

Here's the challenge, as described by Dr. Charles Peter Romaine from Penn State:

"There has always been a recognized potential of the mushroom as being a choice platform for the mass production of commercially valuable proteins. Mushrooms could make the ideal vehicle for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals to treat a broad array of human illnesses. But nobody has been able to come up with a feasible way of doing that."

And here's how they work their mushroom magic.

The researchers first take bacteria DNA and attach additional genetic material that confers a resistance to a specific antibiotic.
This will eventually act as a marker, allowing the researchers to differentiate the mushroom cells from the transgenic cells.

Then they added mushroom material into a flask containing the altered bacteria. As the bacteria goes through its lifecycle, it transfers part of its genetic material into the mushroom.

Finally, they exposed the bacteria to the antibiotic, which killed off the non-resistant portions, leaving the transgenic genes, and the drugs you're looking to manufacture.

Mushrooms make the ideal drug factories because they have a much shorter lifecycle than plants. A crop of mushrooms could turn around a drug order in a manner of weeks, not months.

Modified Mushrooms May Yield Human Drugs [Penn State Live]