Abstract
The phylum Cnidaria is an ancient group of venomous animals, specialized in the production and delivery of toxins. Many species belonging to the class Anthozoa have been studied and their venoms often contain a group of peptides, less than 10 kDa, that act upon ion channels. These peptides and their targets interact with high affinity producing neurotoxic and cardiotoxic effects, and even death, depending on the dose and the administration pathway. Zoanthiniaria is an order of the Subclass Hexacorallia, class Anthozoa, and unlike sea anemone (order Actiniaria), neither its diversity of toxins nor the in vivo effects of the venoms has been exhaustively explored. In this study we assessed some toxicological tests on mice with a low molecular weight fraction obtained by gel filtration in Sephadex G-50 from Zoanthus sociatus crude extract. The gel filtration chromatogram at 280 nm revealed two major peaks, the highest absorbance corresponding to the low molecular weight fraction. The toxicological effects seem to be mostly autonomic and cardiotoxic, causing death in a dose dependent manner with a LD50 of 792 μg/kg. Moreover, at a dose of 600 μg/kg the active fraction accelerated the KCl-induced lethality in mice.
Highlights
The phylum Cnidaria is an ancient group of predominantly marine simple animals that comprise over 11,000 extant species [1], which share a common diagnostic feature: the cnida [2]
Most cnidarians toxins have been successfully isolated from class Anthozoa, from sea anemones, which is partly due by the stability of their toxins compared to jellyfish toxins [8]
Z. sociatus crude extract was subjected to a Sephadex G50 gel chromatography and the elution of its components was monitored by absorbance at 280 nm
Summary
The phylum Cnidaria is an ancient group of predominantly marine simple animals that comprise over 11,000 extant species [1], which share a common diagnostic feature: the cnida [2]. At least 191 proteins from sea anemones are recognized without ambiguities, considering the complete peptide sequences (or the information obtained by the translation of coding sequence submitted “CDSs” to GenBank database) and more than 80% deduced amino acid sequences for proteins over 10 kDa [9] Most of these toxins correspond to peptides that act on voltage-gated sodium (Nav) and potassium channels (Kv), whose molecular weights are between 3.5–6.5 kDa and 3–5 kDa, respectively [10]. These toxins seem to have an universal distribution within the group, since all species tested have been found to contain toxins that are lethal or paralytic to crabs [10]. A dose-mortality curve was constructed and conspicuous toxic symptoms were monitored and discussed
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