Palytoxin Lit Search (PubMed)

[MrAnderson]

A partial repost, I didn't want this buried in the Lounge.

 

Each quote is from a different study. The search engine was the National Institutes of Health literature search engine, NCBI PubMed, using "palytoxin" as the search parameter. I only read about 10 abstracts and cited a few, there's 230 in total, so there's a lot more than this to be seen.

 

"In coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea (Colombia) palytoxin (PTX) has been detected in zoanthid species of the genera Palythoa and Zoanthus..."

Toxicon. 1995 Nov;33(11):1531-7. Studies on the origin and distribution of palytoxin in a Caribbean coral reef. Gleibs S, Mebs D, Werding B.

 

"This result indicates that the dinoflagellate O. siamensis is one of the biogenetic origins of palytoxin."

Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2001 Nov;65(11):2585-8.Structure elucidation of ostreocin D, a palytoxin analog isolated from the dinoflagellate Ostreopsis siamensis.Ukena T, Satake M, Usami M, Oshima Y, Naoki H, Fujita T, Kan Y, Yasumoto T.

 

"...palytoxin (PTX), which has been detected in zoanthid species of the genus Palythoa, also occurred in various other marine organisms living in close association with zoanthid colonies, e.g. sponges (Porifera), soft corals (Alcyonaria), gorgonians (Gorgonaria), mussels, and crustaceans. Predators, e.g. polychaete worms (Hermodice carunculata), a starfish (Acanthaster planci) and fish (Chaetodon species) feeding on Palythoa colonies, accumulate high toxin concentrations in their organs, where PTX is stored in its active form..."

Toxicon. 1999 Nov;37(11):1521-7. Distribution and sequestration of palytoxin in coral reef animals.Gleibs S, Mebs D.Zentrum der Rechtsmedizin, University of Frankfurt, Germany.

 

"Palytoxin which had been primarily detected in marine zoanthids (Palythoa sp.), occurs also in a wide range of other animals, e.g. in sponges, corals, shellfish, polychaetes and crustaceans, but also in fish, which feed on crustaceans and zoanthids as well. :

Toxicon. 1998 Nov;36(11):1519-22. Occurrence and sequestration of toxins in food chains. Mebs D.Zentrum der Rechtsmedizin, University of Frankfurt, Germany.

 

"Between October 30 and November 4, 2000, eleven persons were intoxicated due to ingestion of a serranid fish Epinephelus sp. in Kochi Prefecture, Japan....The causative agent was identified as palytoxin (PTX) on the basis of delayed haemolytic activity which was inhibited by an anti-PTX antibody and ouabain (g-strophanthin). To our knowledge, this is the first report on palytoxin poisoning with serranid fish."

J Nat Toxins. 2002 Dec;11(4):277-82.Occurrence of a food poisoning incident by palytoxin from a serranid Epinephelus sp. in Japan. Taniyama S, Mahmud Y, Terada M, Takatani T, Arakawa O, Noguchi T.

 

From the above, we can see that some premises that are generally agreed upon by researchers who study palytoxin are:

 

1) Palytoxin has a wide geographic distribution.

2) The source is a symbiotic dinoflagellate which lives in corals. The palytoxin-containing corals can then be eaten by fish and the toxin sequestered in tissue.

3) Palytoxin can be isolated from a variety of fishes as well as various corals.

[Caesar777]

Nice post. Got any links?

[MrAnderson]

Just the one above, you'll have to type in the search yourself, it wont let me link a search. Try it out, it's pretty easy.

 

You get the abstracts, not the full articles unfortunately. Many of the journals are expensive so you can't get the full texts without a paid subscription. I included the citations so people could go look for themselves.

[proraptor]

I believe I was exposed to this toxin last week. I had a rash all over my body and little bubbles formed under my skin on my palms/fingers. I went to Urgent care and they gave me a tetnis (sp?) shot, Cipro, a pill for itching, and a steroid!

 

It seems now that my hands are calousing (sp?) very badly...Ill snap a pic is anyone is interested but its kind of gross.

[MrAnderson]

It's hard to diagnose palytoxin poisoning. The symptoms can be varied and since there's already been a lot of unresolved arguing about individual cases in reefers, I'd rather not bother with individual illnesses if you don't mind.

 

I posted this more because the biology is fascinating, and the data that palytoxin has been isolated in Zoanthus sp., gorgonians, sponges, etc is kind of jarring particularly since most of us (ya me too) thought it was only found in Palythoa.

 

Also surprising is the geographic distribution. Palytoxin (PTX) has been isolated in Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, South Pacific, Caribbean. It's not as rare as I thought.

[proraptor]

The funny part is the doctor that treated me in urgent care also has a huge reef tank I think he said it was 250 gal. and said the same thing happened to him one time when some rocks in his reef fell on some corals...

[MrAnderson]

The funny part is the doctor that treated me in urgent care also has a huge reef tank I think he said it was 250 gal. and said the same thing happened to him one time when some rocks in his reef fell on some corals...

 

[lgreen]

More likely an alergic reaction, not toxin poisoning, although I suppose perhaps the histamine response could be due to toxin, but doesn't seem as likely give all the other stuff that could have hurt you in the tank.

 

I did that same search back when there was that big palytoxin thread in the advanced forum MR.A, but did it on medline instead. Found mostly the same stuff though.

 

What kills me is that a bunch of the experts in this hobby wrote articles about how bad palytoxin is, but did reference their comments to any primary literature.

 

And they call themselves scientists! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!

[MrAnderson]

Another from 1992. Add anemones to the list:

 

"A very potent non-protein toxin was isolated from the sea anemone Radianthus macrodactylus ... The toxin was identified as palytoxin by u.v.-, i.r.- and 500 MHz 1H NMR spectroscopy. Its LD50 was 0.74 +/- 0.29 micrograms/kg by i.v. injection into mice. So far, palytoxin has been associated with zoanthids only."

 

Sea anemone Radianthus macrodactylus--a new source of palytoxin.

 

Toxicon. 1992 Nov;30(11):1449-56. Related Articles, Links

Mahnir VM, Kozlovskaya EP, Kalinovsky AI.

Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok.

[Caesar777]

Pro - Haha, gross. You know, one of my coworkers had a persistent callus that formed on his hand at his last job (a different lfs, really a full-line pet store with SW) after scraping it on some live rock. His doctor kept an eye on it and eventually, after a couple of months, decided to excise the wound--figured it was an irritated callus, abcess, or similar. Turns out it was full of odd fluid, pus, and, most shockingly, some odd long, red threads. Obviously wasn't from poisoning, but from brushing some allergenic foreign object on the LR, but nevertheless..... Think about that. Get your hands checked if it persists. And don't watch when the doc opens it up.

 

Haha, gross.

[MillerLite]

If there is anyone interested in actually viewing some of these abstracts:

 

1. Go to the pubmed.gov website.

2. Repeat the seatch entering palytoxin as a search string.

3. Or on the left, click single citation. Using MrAnderson's search information, input

the author, year, title, etc. to find a specific abstract. Sometimes there is an

online link to the article itself.

4. I might have access to some of these journals if you cant access them online

through the pubmed website. PM me with 1 or 2 of your favorites and I might be

able to secure it for you. Be aware however, that they might be pretty technical

depending on the journal. Plus articles older than 1996 are usually not online.

[MrAnderson]

Cool ML, thanks.

 

Actually, can you get online copies of Toxicon? I would actually like to check out the full text of two following aritcles, full citations above:

 

Studies on the origin and distribution of palytoxin in a Caribbean coral reef.

 

Distribution and sequestration of palytoxin in coral reef animals

[MillerLite]

Cool ML, thanks.

 

Actually, can you get online copies of Toxicon? I would actually like to check out the full text of two following aritcles, full citations above:

 

Studies on the origin and distribution of palytoxin in a Caribbean coral reef.

 

Distribution and sequestration of palytoxin in coral reef animals

 

I PM'd you.

 

Terry

[MrAnderson]

Many thaks to MillerLite, it was an interesting read. Two interesting things:

 

1) The level of palytoxin is actually greater in some of the community-associated corals like Sarcophyton and Sinularia spp. and other invertebrates than Palythoa. Polychaete worms living among Palythoa had much higher palytoxin concentrations by weight than Palythoa.

 

2) In a fractionation experiment of extracts from Hermodice carunculata, the elution profile suggests either the presence of more than one toxin or a chemical subspecies of palytoxin which operates by a different mechanism.

[lgreen]

wow, nice find.

[nUgZ]

Very interesting Mr.A. Thanks.

[lgreen]

I'm still not convinced that that many corals are circulating around in this hobby that have palytoxin.

 

I want someone to start running protein assays and doing chromatography on common corals we all own and culture. I'm seriously thinking about doing it myself if I can find a simple protocol. = easy masters degree? ha ha j/k.

[travisurfer]

Ok, seriously. This palytoxin was found in wild specimens. First, the dinoflagellate could have been one posing a certain coloration. Second, this specific species of dinoflagellate may be more sensitive to water changes than others and so dies off during the transport species. Could be one reason why our corals just aren't as pretty. Also, the dinoflagellate may only produce the palytoxin under certain conditions which aren't present in our tank. I just came up with this in a minute. Obviously, there needs to be more research done on this before I'm convinved.

[MrAnderson]

I'm still not convinced that that many corals are circulating around in this hobby that have palytoxin.

 

I want someone to start running protein assays and doing chromatography on common corals we all own and culture. I'm seriously thinking about doing it myself if I can find a simple protocol. = easy masters degree? ha ha j/k.

 

Totally valid point. But that's not really what I was getting at in this post. It was more to address the widely shared idea that palytoxin is found naturally in only one or two species, because clearly it is not. Many corals in our tanks are wild-caught, so I felt it was relevant.

 

And palytoxin isn't a protein, so westerns, protein chromatographs, yada yada, can't be used for detection. The assays used for detection have an in vitro readout, i.e. inhibition of specific ion-channels in cultured cells, folowed by mass spectroscopy for validation. It's pretty complicated.

 

 

Ok, seriously. This palytoxin was found in wild specimens. First, the dinoflagellate could have been one posing a certain coloration. Second, this specific species of dinoflagellate may be more sensitive to water changes than others and so dies off during the transport species. Could be one reason why our corals just aren't as pretty. Also, the dinoflagellate may only produce the palytoxin under certain conditions which aren't present in our tank. I just came up with this in a minute. Obviously, there needs to be more research done on this before I'm convinved.

 

All possible, but really, conjecture. I don't really think it's a given that there's no palytoxin ever found in a reef tank as a starting point, as a rationale to develop the hypotheses you presented. Some hobbyists have experienced symptoms mirroring palytoxin poisoning, and I'm going to go with Occam's razor on this one...

[bradarmi]

Agreed, but with some understanding. In order to make proteins and toxins, several ingredients must be present for the toxin to be made successfully. Whether it be a particular sub species of dinoflagelate, an important cofactor (selenium, folate, etc), or a particular bacterial, viral, or protozoal peptide incorporation; all the necessary ingredients must be there for a toxin to be made. While many of our reefs mimic the natural environment, we are most likely missing one or two of those key ingredients. A toxin is there to ward off potential aggressors, when that selective pressure is removed, the coral may not continue to make such toxins. Many of these protein or chemical toxins are made in response to cell-cell interactions and signal transduction of proteins much in the same way our hormones communicate with other proteins in our bodies. You can take the coral out of the ocean, but you can't take the ocean out of the coral so to speak. The ability to make such toxins is there, but that doesn't mean the animal will make them.

 

 

While not on palytoxin per se, the following might be interesting.

MP2Reprint.pdf

marine_pharmacology.pdf

Review_marine_Rx.pdf

[MrAnderson]

While many of our reefs mimic the natural environment, we are most likely missing one or two of those key ingredients.

 

This is more conjecture than I'm comfortable with... Plus I think this is putting the cart before the horse.

 

You're presenting hypothetical mechanisms to explain why palytoxin isn't found in a captive reef. But the starting point for the rational basis, namely that palytoxin isn't found in captive reefs, isn't a foregone conclusion at all.

 

But I'll play the conjecture game for fun. Let's assume palytoxin isn't found in captive corals...

 

The crux is that nobody has any idea if palytoxin production is constitutive or regulated.

 

Idea 1) If production is regulated, then what you say regarding "selective pressures" might be true. But the mechanism would make for a poor defense, and require inter-kingdom molecular communication between two symbionts as well as inter-organismal communication between coral polyps. I say "poor defense" because, to get teleological, why would an organism "want" to shut off such a broad-spectrum defense against predation, particularly a defense that would require time to spool back up? In practical terms, the coral would be gone before the defense was mounted, and more importantly the predator would know nothing of it and go eat more of that prey. The mechanism isn't only purely hypothetical, but doesn't make sense in terms of survival and behavioral imprinting of the predator.

 

Idea 2) If production is constitutive then the next checkpoint you mention, precursor availability, may come into play. But we know nothing of the enzymatic pathway that produces PTX. Since it IS the biological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and required for survival in the wild, I could just as easily argue that the enzymatic pathway could require very little in the way of complicated or rare precursors. Again, from a biologist's point of view: if it's important for basic survival, I would argue that it's likely that production would not be limited by the environment or rare precursors. Additionally, the enzymatic pathway itself wouldn't be subject to any of these constraints, and the pathway would always be "on", but with varying quantities of product...

 

Also, the idea of precursors being an environmentally rate-limiting step of synthesis in the marine context, while theoretically possible, hasn't been demonstrated (at least according to the reviews you cited). In the second paper you cited, mariculture of Bugula neritina, deep-water sponges, Lissodendoryx sp., etc. have all been aquacultured successfully with preservation of their respective desired bioactive compounds.

 

See what happens when you get into a conjectural argument lol? We could go on literally forever like this...

[tinyreef]

ooookaaay.

 

 

 

so did anyone ever get to see pro's std's pictures? did he ever post them?

 

i'm kinda curious what his herpe, i mean palytoxin wounds really look like.

[MrAnderson]

i thought he sent you those pics for your birthday!

[tinyreef]

i can't (don't wanna) wait that long.

[bradarmi]

You're presenting hypothetical mechanisms to explain why palytoxin isn't found in a captive reef. But the starting point for the rational basis, namely that palytoxin isn't found in captive reefs, isn't a foregone conclusion at all..

 

Of course it isn't a conclusion, it is an observation. Everyone has been skeptical of this toxin and what species it actually comes from. Some say it from a few species off the coast of Hawaii but others have reported a similar toxin in other corals and marine invertebrates. Is it all Palythoa and Zoanthid species - don't think so. Geographic distribution seems to be a factor as well as species localiztion. To the best of my knowledge, no one has reported this toxin from captive coral. Since all "captive" coral came from wild stock, I would hypothesize that being away from its native environment would be a very good explaination as to why they are no longer as toxic as before.

 

Idea 1) If production is regulated, then what you say regarding "selective pressures" might be true. But the mechanism would make for a poor defense, and require inter-kingdom molecular communication between two symbionts as well as inter-organismal communication between coral polyps. I say "poor defense" because, to get teleological, why would an organism "want" to shut off such a broad-spectrum defense against predation, particularly a defense that would require time to spool back up? In practical terms, the coral would be gone before the defense was mounted, and more importantly the predator would know nothing of it and go eat more of that prey. The mechanism isn't only purely hypothetical, but doesn't make sense in terms of survival and behavioral imprinting of the predator.

 

 

MrA, interspecific and intramolecular competition is precisely what I was getting at. Signaling molecules from these organisms are just what drives the production of such toxins. What I am saying (and what you apparently failed to understand) is that none of the aforementioend events are singly important but all are necessary and sufficient to make efficacious palytoxin on the corals part. To argue teleologically, the coral wants to make its toxin, but cannot. And how does behavioural imprinting on a predator work exactly in the reef? Palytoxin is a sodium/potassium pump inhibitor, and inhibits all sodium/potassium pumps (they are traditionally highly conserved through the phylla). The coral doesn't care if it interferes with membrane polarity of its neighboring Xenia or a sea turtle. I was proposing a way in whcih these events are regulated - not writting in stone how they work. What I know about signalling processes in eukaryotes can be extrapolated to lower forms since many of these signalling pathways have an evolutionary basis.

 

Also, the idea of precursors being an environmentally rate-limiting step of synthesis in the marine context, while theoretically possible, hasn't been demonstrated (at least according to the reviews you cited). In the second paper you cited, mariculture of Bugula neritina, deep-water sponges, Lissodendoryx sp., etc. have all been aquacultured successfully with preservation of their respective desired bioactive compounds

 

That implies they knew what compounds they were looking for - everyone thinks they are acting the same way - phenotypically look like the others- but do they in fact have all the same proteins and all the same behaviours? Deep sea life it very different from reef life - maybe they make a toxin we do not know about?

 

As far as cofactors (vitamins and minerals) not being reported as the rate-limiting step of any protein production - where have you been? Many cofactors are the rate-limiting step of protein production. Ascorbic acid is the rate-limiting step necessary for the conversion of many proteins and chemicals from their inactive into their active state - ever heard of scurvy, and its effects? Why should the marine environment be any different?

 

By the way even constitutive pathways can be turned off or at least lessened from environmental cues. I am sure many women have missed a week from normal menses when stressful situations arise in their lives (new house, failed marriage, etc). Estrogen and progesterone are always cycling in a 28 day cycle but sometime the message gets scrambled. Constitutive process are tightly regulated and reley on environemental cues.

 

 

Everyone that has reported a "rash" and burning sensations blame it on palytoxin, but in reality, palytoxin acts much like the cardiac glycosides from Digitalis (foxglove), by interferring with membrane polarity and decreasing electric conductance velocity and force through the heart. This "palytoxin poisoning" that people talk about is none other than a histamine-based immune reaction to a xenobiotic, non-peptide compound. The burning sensation may be due to its sodium/potassium channel blocking properties.