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Sorry to tell you, but you can not let off steam with hemp. The plant responsible for the ropey bracelets that children make at summer camp produces only traces of the high-grade compound, THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. Indeed, these tiny amounts of THC are among the main characteristics that distinguish hemp from her husband, cannabis, cannabis.
For hemp, everything is not bad: the plant produces another lucrative compound called CBD, or cannabidiol. This non-psychoactive molecule is the key ingredient of the first cannabis-based drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug called Epidiolex is used to treat rare forms of epilepsy in children.
What's more, misconceptions about the other potential benefits of the CBD have helped create a $ 202 million market for hemp oil containing the molecule. [25 Odd Facts About Marijuana]
But how did we arrive at these two molecules?
A team of geneticists, biologists and botanists have come together to find out. Together, they analyzed the genomes of a hemp strain and a marijuana strain, publishing the results Monday, November 26 in the journal Genome Research.
This is not the first time that some members of this research team have been trying to map the genomes of both plants. They had already tried to do this in 2011, said co-author of the study, Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at the University of Toronto and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. (However, some of his co-authors have links with Van Bakel.) At the time, the team discovered that plant genomes were filled with small pieces of DNA that were repeated in several regions. of the genetic code.
These repeated pieces do not behave like plant DNA; Instead, they behave like viruses, in that they can replicate and insert themselves throughout the genome, van Bakel said. This virus-like behavior suggests that these segments may have been derived from viruses that have already infected the plants. In addition, these repetitive segments are responsible for the total length of many genomes of plants and animals. In hemp and marijuana, he noted, segments account for 73% of the DNA.
New and improved technology
But the analytical tool used by the team in 2011 cut the genome into too small pieces, making segment alignment difficult – many pieces started and ended with identical repetition segments.
This time, the research group used an analytical method to map larger chunks of genome. "It was enough to rebuild a much more contiguous and less fragmented version of the genome," van Bakel told Live Science. The scientists also crossed the hemp with marijuana and then examined the genome of the hybrid to see how much the parent plant genes were aligning. [10 Amazing Things Scientists Just Did with CRISPR]
These genetic maps showed that the THC and CBD genes are located at slightly different locations on both genomes but that these genes share a genetic ancestor – a gene that once duplicated and allowed two new versions, THC and CBD, to develop. The researchers also found that the replication segments behaving like viruses (and probably viruses long ago) were found in and around the THC and CBD genes, and helped transform them into what we we have today. And, surprise: the team discovered a third similar gene, coding for a molecule called CBC, or cannabichromene, which also appears in hemp and marijuana.
Nevertheless, further research is needed to determine when these divergences in the THC and CBD genes occurred and what the ancestral gene looked like, van Bakel said. These studies will cover all other varieties of hemp and marijuana available, as both are consistently selected to produce specific levels of THC and CBD. With a better understanding of how we got these two beneficial genes, farmers may be able to skip the time-consuming breeding process and plant varieties that they know will create the compounds that they have. ;they wish. For example, CBC acts against certain effects of THC, so it is important to choose the right ratio between the two molecules, said van Bakel.
For most other American cultures, there are genome maps, either in draft or detail, Mr. van Bakel noted. "Cannabis is in the middle of this pack, even closer to the end," he said. Van Bakel, along with colleagues and other geneticists, plans to continue – and with the pace of growth of the THC and CBD industry, these scientists are lagging behind to catch up.
Originally published on Science live.
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