Scientists Have Figured Out How To Make Cocaine From A Tobacco Plant

Despite its medical uses, cocaine is a highly addictive substance that is harmful to one's health. According to a New Scientist report, Chinese researchers genetically modified the tobacco plant to produce cocaine in its leaves.

According to Science News magazine, the complex biochemistry that sees coca plants make cocaine has been unpicked and replicated in a relative of the tobacco plant. Recreating the process by modifying other plants or microorganisms could lead to a way to manufacture the stimulant or produce chemically similar compounds with unique properties.

According to the online magazine Interesting Engineering, cocaine is a naturally occurring tropane alkaloid that is naturally produced in the leaves of the Erythroxylum coca plant. While notorious for its abuse, cocaine and its derivatives have been used by humans for centuries. Native tribes in South America have been cultivating coca and chewing its leaves for at least 8000 years for their stimulant and hunger-suppressing properties.

In the new study, Sheng-Xiong Huang and his colleagues at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China have discovered a way to better understand the process by introducing two previously absent enzymes known as EnMT4 and EnCYP81AN15. These enzymes are responsible for converting the chemical precursor into cocaine.

To prove it, researchers genetically modified tobacco's closest relative, Nicotiana benthamiana, to produce these two enzymes, resulting in the synthesis of cocaine in the plant's leaves. Experiments showed that the modified plant could produce about 400 nanograms of cocaine per milligramme of dried leaf, or roughly 25% of the amount found in a coca plant.

"Currently, the available production of cocaine in tobacco is not sufficient to meet large-scale demand," explained Sheng-Xiong Huang, a co-author of the study.