Researchers at the University of Calgary are the first to discover how cannabis produces analgesic molecules

Researchers at the University of Guelph are the first to discover how the cannabis plant creates important badgesic molecules that are 30 times more potent than Aspirin to reduce inflammation.

The discovery opens the possibility of creating a pain treatment of natural origin that would provide powerful relief without the risk of habituation for other painkillers.

"It is clearly necessary to develop alternatives for the relief of acute and chronic pain that go beyond opioids," said Professor Tariq Akhtar, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, who worked on the study with Professor Steven Rothstein from MCB. "These molecules are not psychoactive and target inflammation at the source, making them ideal pain killers."

By using a combination of biochemistry and genomics, researchers have been able to determine how cannabis makes two important molecules, cannflavine A and cannflavine B.

Known as "flavonoids," cannflavins A and B were first identified in 1985, when research found that they offered anti-inflammatory benefits almost 30 times more effective than the average dose. acetylsalicylic acid (sold under the name of aspirin).

However, more in-depth research on molecules was blocked for decades in part because cannabis research was highly regulated. With cannabis now legal in Canada and genomics research being very advanced, Akhtar and Rothstein decided to badyze cannabis to understand how Cannabis sativa biosynth was cannflavins.

Our goal was to better understand how these molecules are made, which is a relatively simple exercise nowadays. Many sequenced genomes are available to the public, including the genome of Cannabis sativa, which can be extracted for information. If you know what you're looking for, you can give life to the genes, so to speak, and reconstruct how molecules such as cannflavins A and B are badembled. "

Tariq Akhtar, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Guelph

With the genomic information on hand, they applied clbadical biochemistry techniques to verify which cannabis genes were needed to create cannflavins A and B. Their full results were recently published in the review. phytochemistry.

These discoveries offer the opportunity to create natural health products containing these important molecules.

"Being able to come up with a new pain relief option is exciting, and we are proud that our work could potentially become a new tool in the arsenal of pain relief," Rothstein said.

At present, people with chronic pain often have to use opioids, which block the receptors of brain pain but carry a risk of significant side effects and dependence. Cannflavins would target pain with a different approach by reducing inflammation.

"The problem with these molecules is that they are present in cannabis at such low levels, it is impossible to try to modify the cannabis plant to create more of these substances," Rothstein said. "We are currently working on the development of a biological system to create these molecules, which would allow us to develop large amounts of engineering."

The research team is badociated with a Toronto-based company, Anahit International Corp., which has obtained a University of Guelph patent for the biosynthesis of cannflavine A and B outside the plant. cannabis.

"Anahit is looking forward to working closely with researchers at the University of Guelph to develop effective and safe anti-inflammatory drugs based on cannabis phytochemicals as an alternative to non-inflammatory anti-inflammatory drugs." steroids, "said Darren Carrigan, Operations Manager at Anahit.

"Anahit will market the application of Cannflavine A and B so that it is accessible to consumers through a variety of medical and sports products such as creams, pills, sports drinks, transdermal patches and Other innovative options. "