A warning about toxicity. A MUST read.

[oceanparadise1]

Found this on another site thought every one should know about it!!

I'm sure most of you have heard about zoanthids being toxic, but I bet you didn't know just how bad they can be.

quote:
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Palytoxin
The crude ethanol extracts of the Palythoa toxica proved to be so toxic that an accurate LD50 was difficult to determine. More recently, the toxicity has been determined to be 50-100 ng/kg i.p. in mice. The compound is an intense vasoconstrictor; in dogs, it causes death within 5 min at 60 ng/kg. By extrapolation, a toxic dose in a human would be about 4 micrograms. It is the most toxic organic substance known!
Shimizu [27] and Moore [28] published the chemical structure of palytoxin and it was prepared synthetically in 1989 [29,30]. Palytoxin is a fabulously interesting compound, with a bizarre structure and many extraordinary signs (Fig. 6). Palytoxin is a large, very complex molecule with lipophilic and hydrophilic areas. The palytoxin molecule has the longest continuous chain of carbon atoms known to exist in a natural product. In the molecule of palytoxin, C129H223N3O54, 115 of the 129 carbons are in a continuous chain.. There are 54 atoms of oxygen, but only 3 atoms of nitrogen. Another unusual structure of palytoxin is that it contains 64 stereogenic centers, which means that palytoxin can have 264 stereoisomers! Added to this, the double bonds can exhibit cis/trans isomerism, which means that palytoxin can have more than 1021 (one sextilion) stereoisomers! This staggering molecular complexity should indicate the difficult nature of designing a stereocontrolled synthetic strategy that will produce just the one correct (natural) stereocenter out of >1021 possible stereoisomers.
Palytoxin induces powerful membrane depolarization and ionic channeling [31,32]. Palytoxin is a potent hemolysin, histamine releaser, inhibitor of Na/K ATPase, and a cation ionophore [33]. It is also a non-TPA-type tumor promoter [34,35].

 

[EliteReefs]

Let be sure to offer all sides on info like this.

Close ended statements like this are how all sorts of crazy "killer coral" stories get started. Yes they can carry a toxin and yes they can hurt SOME people. BUT it is not even close to as bad as some make it seem.

The best way to some it up is MOST people will never have any ill effect or reaction to the toxin that a few zoanthids carry. It is not every polyp and there are only a few in which toxic levels have been found. It is like the people that are allergic to bees. For most a bee sting is just annoying but for some it is life or death. So in short take precautions to protect yourself but over all don’t freak out about it.

 

[FateX8]

oh great, its gunna start up again

 

[Lytehouse]

Go to bed oceans..... lol

 

[Hopkins]

Not again....

 

[robharold]

What do you folks mean "Not again"?

I have known quite a few reefers in my area that have been poisoned(varying stages) by zoanthids/palythoas. It is a very strong and potent toxin. I myself was poisoned once. I was fragging and did not wash my hands apparently put something in my mouth. About 30min to an hour later I was slightly dizzy and had an awful metallic taste in my mouth. I could not figure out for the life of me what the heck was going on. Then suddenly it dawned on me. Dizziness, headache, metallic taste, all signs of poisoning.

That being said, it is EXTREMELY easy to avoid this problem by simply wearing gloves and maybe protective glasses. It is also highly unlikely you will ever see any ill affect unless you have cuts or accidentally ingest the stuff.

 

[surfn]

Let be sure to offer all sides on info like this.

Close ended statements like this are how all sorts of crazy "killer coral" stories get started. Yes they can carry a toxin and yes they can hurt SOME people. BUT it is not even close to as bad as some make it seem.

The best way to some it up is MOST people will never have any ill effect or reaction to the toxin that a few zoanthids carry. It is not every polyp and there are only a few in which toxic levels have been found. It is like the people that are allergic to bees. For most a bee sting is just annoying but for some it is life or death. So in short take precautions to protect yourself but over all don’t freak out about it.

the fact is, there aren't any studies out there that note what concentrations of palytoxin is found in each zoanthid species. and whether or not the chemical just lies dormant in the cells, or if its actually extruded in the mucos as a defense mechanism.

all that we really know is that palytoxin is found in the genus palythoa. and if i remember correctly, zoanthids are not considered part of that genus or species?

oh great, its gunna start up again

Go to bed oceans..... lol

yeah seriously, 3:40am? someone needs to lay off the rip fuel and red bulls.

Not again....

What do you folks mean "Not again"?

I have known quite a few reefers in my area that have been poisoned(varying stages) by zoanthids/palythoas. It is a very strong and potent toxin. I myself was poisoned once. I was fragging and did not wash my hands apparently put something in my mouth. About 30min to an hour later I was slightly dizzy and had an awful metallic taste in my mouth. I could not figure out for the life of me what the heck was going on. Then suddenly it dawned on me. Dizziness, headache, metallic taste, all signs of poisoning.

That being said, it is EXTREMELY easy to avoid this problem by simply wearing gloves and maybe protective glasses. It is also highly unlikely you will ever see any ill affect unless you have cuts or accidentally ingest the stuff.

you have no evidence they were poisoned by palytoxin. palytoxin causes acute heart failure. so if you get poisoned by it, you are dead. you don't get numbness, and you don't get the metallic taste in your mouth. the reason you don't get these symptoms is b/c palytoxin reacts with a certain receptor in the heart, it has nothing to do with the peripheral nervous system.

so i always call BS if someone says they had palytoxin poisoning and lived to tell about it. not even ER docs could accurately diagnose a palytoxin poisoning, it would take very special toxicolgy screaning in which only a few dozen research labs in the country would be able to do.

with that said, there are millions of unknown chemicals in these corals. it could be any number of molecules that cause these adverse symptoms in humans or animals. we literally don't know enough chemical science about these corals to assume anything.

 

[oceanparadise1]

The reason i put this, is bc the person who showed this to me, had they dog die from them. It was proven in a autopsy! i think thats proof enough. Man just trying to help ya!!!

 

[FateX8]

was it proven that it was palytoxin that killed it or did the owner say he ate zoanthids and they have palytoxin to the dr and the dr said oh that must be it
like surfn said though, if palytoxin gets in you, youre pretty much dead
most of the reactions people get are allergic reactions that get blown out of proportion and then people blame palytoxins
this past year i had a cut on my finger and then i worked with some zoanthids and that night my finger got extremely swollen and i said uh oh i worked with zoas must be toxins in the zoa...didnt think palytoxin cause if it was palytoxin i wouldnt have jsut a swollen finger
then a few months later i worked in the same tank but not with the zoanthids and picked up this black sponge for a few seconds and the same sensation came back
realized it was just an infection to a really crappy sponge and not a toxin at all

 

[surfn]

The reason i put this, is bc the person who showed this to me, had they dog die from them. It was proven in a autopsy! i think thats proof enough. Man just trying to help ya!!!

no way dude. they don't do that kind of specialized autopsies on animals (especially dogs) unless it was at a very specialized veterinary school, and the owner had allot of money to fund the autopsy, or the doctors had reason to believe something was contageous and possed a health risk. even then, i highly doubt the majority of veterinary schools would have a research scientist that knew what kind of assay to run to look for something like that......unless they had a big marine bio research group.

 

[oceanparadise1]

he paid thousands of dollars to find out what it was, and yes the dog ate 3 frags while the owner walked away! Hey, take it as you want, im just trying to let people know how dangerous these things can be.

 

[Smarsh]

well, I did a google search and came up with this. According to this little blurb from Germany, they did test the zoanthid and it did show palytoxin. I am not going to join the site to read the whole case study but if someone else wanted to that would be great.



A case of palytoxin poisoning due to contact with zoanthid corals through a skin injury.
[My paper] Katrin Hoffmann, Maren Hermanns-Clausen, Claus Buhl, Markus W Büchler, Peter Schemmer, Dietrich Mebs, Silke Kauferstein
Department of General Surgery, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 110, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
A case of human poisoning by palytoxin after contact with zoanthid corals (Parazoanthus sp.) in an aquarium through skin injuries on fingers is reported. The clinical symptoms include swelling, paraesthesia and numbness around the site of the injury spreading over the arm, but also signs of systemic poisoning such as dizziness, general weakness and myalgia, irregularities in the ECG and indications of rhabdomyolysis. Symptomatic treatment consisted of infusion of physiological fluids. The patient recovered within 3 days. Analysis of the zoanthid coral involved revealed extremely high concentrations of palytoxin (between 2 and 3mg/g).

 

[robharold]

so i always call BS if someone says they had palytoxin poisoning and lived to tell about it. not even ER docs could accurately diagnose a palytoxin poisoning, it would take very special toxicolgy screaning in which only a few dozen research labs in the country would be able to do.

with that said, there are millions of unknown chemicals in these corals. it could be any number of molecules that cause these adverse symptoms in humans or animals. we literally don't know enough chemical science about these corals to assume anything.

You can say what you want about it. I KNOW what I handled and what happened. There are some very strong toxins in both palythoas and zoanthids. I was ONLY handling the zoas and palys in my tank.

Now to say that it was "palytoxin" if that is a particular type of toxin I can not. I can say that I was slightly poisoned by my experience.


As far as calling BS on another how would you be so bold? How do suppose to know the biological processes of poisoning? I have a BS in applied Zoo, with a minor in Chemistry and also focus on microbiology so I am rather well studied on the reactions of toxins in the body.

 

[CoralGeeks]

Most corals are like bees, if you're allergic to bees, you're going to be allergic to corals.

Couple years ago, everytime after working on one of my tanks, I would have little red spots that would itch and burn. I just assumed it was something I messed with. After and hour or so, it would go away. Then one time while cleaning equipment, I picked a tray up and something stung my hand. I flipped it over and noticed these clear stringy blobs all over it. Well they turned out to be jellyfish. I sent the pics and specimens off to marine biologist I know who positivly ID'd them as hydrozoan's. That got me thinking... I had got some liverock from a tank breakdown that had a bunch of what I thought to be green feather dusters, they turned out to be Hydroids (polyp form of jellyfish). So as it turned out, all of this time I thought I was having a reaction to corals, I was really getting stuck by almost invisible jellyfish. Once I cleared them out, the problem went away.

Here's a pic of the jellyfish that stung me.

 

[Kigs!]

Where's the usual crowd? Oh, you guys are here already.

 

[surfn]

As far as calling BS on another how would you be so bold? How do suppose to know the biological processes of poisoning? I have a BS in applied Zoo, with a minor in Chemistry and also focus on microbiology so I am rather well studied on the reactions of toxins in the body.

ok, if you want to go there....

i have degrees in biochemistry, psychology, and chemistry. and i'm currently working on my PhD in neuropulmonary pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Virginia...which is one of the most prestigeous medical research universities in the country. i am also contracted as a scientist by one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world in development of a drug that works directly on the peripheral nerves that control the heart and lungs.

i have used tetradotoxin as well as several other marine neurotoxins in animal testing studies to assess receptor binding at nerve terminals. so it happens that while i have never used palytoxin in a lab (nor will ever need to since its pretty useless as far as research goes) that its right up my alley as far as mechanisms of action go.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Yea well my kid can beat up your kid!!

Let's all relax and have a good time! We can disagree but don't get all bent out of shape.

 

[oceanparadise1]

Im all good rev

 

[oceanparadise1]

i love all u guys and all our arguments!

 

[Aloha Corals]

ya, ya... well i live where the palytoxin was first discovered and used as a weapons back in the 1800's. lol

as much as this topic has been beat to death, it's always good to keep the n00bs in the loop. We don't want them munching on their palys after a big pakalolo session.