Safety Alert - Must reads.

[bkv1997]

Reef Central Online Community - I learned about Zoanthid toxin the hard way......

Seems as the hoby grows and more people frag etc I keep reading these.

Be careful..

[Biertrinker]

Here is an interesting article I found after runing into a similar thread a few months ago.

"The Fantastic Story of the Modern Discovery of Palytoxin
This article was written by Professor Bob Williams of Colorado State University.

Palytoxin was discovered by Professor Paul J. Scheuer at the University of Hawaii. The story of how this toxin, and its producing organism was found is quite interesting. Prof. Scheuer has made a hobby of reading ancient Hawaiian folklore through various library collections on the islands. He came across a reference to Limu make o Hana (deadly seaweed of Hana) in his readings. This is the Hawaiian phrase for a toxic organism which Malo (Hawaiian Antiquities, 1951) described as follows: "In Muolea, in the district of Hana (Maui), grew a poisonous moss in a certain pool or pond close to the ocean. It was used to smear on the spear points to make them fatal.....The moss is said to be of a reddish color and it is still to be found. It grows nowhere else than at that one spot." According to Hawaiian legend (manuscript notes by Katherine Livermore on file at B. P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu), there lived in the Hana district a man who always seemed to be busy planting and harvesting. Whenever the people in the neighborhood went fishing, upon their return, one of the group was missing. This went on for some time without the people having any explanation about the disappearances. At last the fishermen became suspicious of the man who tended his taro patch. They grabbed him, tore off his clothes and discovered on his back the mouth of a shark. They killed and burned him and threw the ashes into the sea. At the spot where this happened, so goes the legend, the limu (moss) became toxic. The tidepool containing the poisonous limu subsequently became kapu (taboo) to the Hawaiians. They would cover the limu with stones and were very secretive about its location. They firmly believed that disaster would strike if anyone were to attempt to gather the toxic limu (later named Palythoa).

Prof. Scheuer collaborated with Professors A.H. Banner and P. Helfrich of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and through a very elaborate chain of local Hawaiian informers and several cases of beer to loosen (frightened) lips, the location of the fabled tidepool was reluctantly disclosed. The tidepool was located at the end of a lava flow at Muolea (Kanewai), south of Hana, Maui. Divers collected a small sample of the toxic limu on December 31st, 1961. During the collection, local residents reminded the collection team of the kapu and the high probability of impending misfortune. Coincidentally, that same afternoon, a fire of unknown origin destroyed the main building of the Hawaii Marine Laboratory at Coconut Island, Oahu (the Institution of Drs Banner and Helfrich). Scuba divers have subsequently combed the surrounding ocean front near the tidal pool and did not find the Palythoa growing anywhere else except in the original location pointed out by local residents. The tide pool turned out to be just six feet long, two feet wide, and 20 inches deep at low tide. 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 50-100ng/kg i.p. in mice. The compound is an intense vasoconstrictor; in dogs, it causes death within 5 min at .06ug/kg. By extrapolation, a toxic dose in a human (obviously not determined) would be about 4 micrograms! It is the most toxic organic substance known.

Following the isolation of the crude toxin by Scheuer (reported in Science (1971) 172, p.495), it was nearly 11 years before the correct structure was unraveled. two research groups, one at the University of Hawaii (led by Prof. Richard Moore, a student of Scheuer's) and one at Nagoya University (led by Prof. Hirata) put together the correct chemical structure in late 1981. Following that, Prof. Yoshito Kishi at Harvard University decided to try the complete chemical synthesis of the Palytoxin molecule. This monumental task was completed in 1989.

The Palytoxin molecule has the longest contiguous chain of carbon atoms known to exist in a natural product(115).The molecule has the formula C129H223N3O54 and contains 64 stereogenic centers. Adding this with the double bonds that can exhibit cis/trans isomerism means that Palytoxin can have more than one sextillion(1021) 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 (Kishi did).

The Palythoa toxica species has more recently been found near Tahiti, but produces a slightly different compound. The Tahitian organism is not widely dispersed in the coral reefs off Tahiti, but does not appear to be as localized as it is on Maui (a single tidal pool)."

[Silvers]

Palytoxin is very rare and is not in many zoa's in the hobby I have been squirted in the eye and mouth more than once with no ill effects. I think it is good info to have out thare ,but eavery time it comes up it leads to panic. Like some people on other boards suggesting a warning be made with the sale of zoas. I think all info should be put out there like how rare this toxin is and whitch zoas is it in insted of saying all zoas can kill you and all need a warning lable

[RevReefer]

From my understanding Palytoxin is more potent that what regular zoanthids can do.

[Ironman]

if it was in most zoos our good reverand would be walking the streets of gold right now. I really think he has probly built up an imunity to palytoxin. h probly eats PPEs for breakfast

[Biertrinker]

I am certain mycobacterium marinum infections are equaly rare as palytoxin exposure, however, this link is worth looking at simply to know what to be aware of. Mycobacterium marinum: The Fish Disease You Could Catch by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com