Toxins from the box-jellyfish Chironex fleckeri

Abstract

Two myotoxins (T 1 and T 2) with mol. wts of approximately 600,000 and 150,000, respectively, and a haemolysin (T 3) with a mol. wt of approximately 70,000 were isolated from the crude nematocyst venom of C. fleckeri by the use of Sephadex G-200 chromatography. A neurotoxic fraction (T 4) and a haemolytic fraction (T 5) containing proteins with apparent mol. wts of approximately 150,000 and 70,000, respectively, were also isolated by Sephadex chromatography from crude extracts of tentacular material from which nematocysts had been removed. The three nematocyst toxins and the two toxic fractions from tentacle extracts were lethal to mice on i.v. injection. After SDS-PAGE the myotoxins T 1 and T 2 yielded similar major bands corresponding with mol. wts different from those yielded by T 3 and the toxic tentacle fractions. T 1 and T 2 appeared to be comprised of aggregations of subunits with mol. wts of approximately 18,000. On HPLC, crude nematocyst venom and the nematocyst toxins T 1 and T 2 lost their myotoxic properties. The need for thorough removal of extraneous tentacular material from isolated nematocysts, the need for effective rupture of nematocysts, the need to counter the lability of the nematocyst venom and the need to use myotoxicity as a criterion of venom activity if the active components of the venom are to be purified and characterized are emphasized.