Sea slug , also called nudibranchs or butterflies of the ocean , take toxic chemical from the sponges they eat and store away the single most noxious chemical compound to use against their marauder by and by on . By preventing certain cellular processes , latrunculin A is extremely toxic to fish , fungus , and even some cancer cell lines . The findings are issue inPLOS ONEthis calendar week .
Like poison flit frogs and vividly colored butterflies , many nudibranch gastropod with chemical substance defence reaction have bright colors that signal their toxicity to piranha . They ’re also known to descend defensive metabolites from their diets . Latrunculin A has previously been isolated from sponges living in the Red Sea and the Pacific , as well as from the intestine contentedness of sponge - feed nudibranchs from the family Chromodorididae . They might be actively sequestering the compound , but not much is known about its dispersion in dissimilar ocean slugs organic structure contribution . justificatory compounds are often localized in places where piranha most oftentimes attack , while other compounds are eliminated through the gut .
A team led byKaren Cheneyfrom the University of Queensland studied five closely - relate nudibranch mollusk ( visualize below ) collect by scuba divers in the Great Barrier Reef and from South East Queensland in Australia . The squad dissected each sea slug into two or three parts : internal organs , themantle(the back airfoil ) , and in some cases , the mantle lip , where the defensive mantle dermal formation are located . ( The mantle rim is that yellow , orangish , or pink border . )
Only latrunculin A was present in the storage reservoirs of the mantle rim ; a variety of other compounds were found in the internal organ . That means the sea slugs pick out just one toxic chemical weapon system to set apart and accumulate in a part of their mantelpiece that ’s the most unwrap to would - be predator .
When the squad conducted comparative toxicity and cytotoxicity tests using purified nudibranch compounds , they found that latrunculin A is several times more powerful than any other compound present . It can even suppress cancer cell ontogenesis . And fertilize tests revealed that latrunculin A was very unpalatable to rock puddle shrimps ; minor amounts kill them . Nudibranchs must have evolved a way to protect themselves from the toxicity of latrunculin A , though on the nose how they sequestrate it from sponges without causing damage to themselves remain a mystery for now . Their digestive system might be specially adjust to detoxify the chemical compound .
Many products used to make drugs are corpuscle that plants and animals habituate to protect themselves . study maritime molluscs has already led to the find of many biologically strong chemicals with analgesic , anti - inflammatory , antiviral , and anticancer activity .
From K.L. Cheney et al . , 2016 PLOS ONE
