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Keeping multiple blue rings together?

oceanbound said:
actually from what i have heard the toxin is a biproduct of the bacteria which live in the "rings" of the spotted octopus. as opposed to residing inside the creatures themselves

It is produced by bacteria, but it's not near the rings; I believe the bacteria are "cultured" in the salivary glands: see What makes blue-rings so deadly? - The Cephalopod Page

This also answers my original question:

Interestingly, blue-ringed octopuses are not affected by TTX, probably because they have evolved a slightly different sodium channel receptor that does not interact with the TTX molecule.

Does anyone (perhaps Roy, who wrote the article, hint hint) know any more details on this? I know there are a lot of people interested in studying the biochemistry of ion channels, and the evolutionary genetics of their development, so it seems like it would be very interesting to learn how these octos have TTX-proofing. On the other hand, most researchers prefer to avoid working with animals that can easily kill them...

I'm actually emailing a friend who studies the biochemistry of ion channels to see if their community knows about this adaptation... If no one has looked into it, this seems like a potentially very fruitful tool for understanding the mechanics of ion channels....
 
cuttlegirl said:
Here's some info on TTX and its uses in humans...
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/critter/8212pufferfish.html

Gack! I hope they have oxygen and ventilators on standby whenever they use this treatment!!! I guess if someone is in really, really severe pain it might be worth the risk, but it seems like a very, very, very dangerous thing to do, and since it just blocks all signals on all nerves (except cardiac, I guess) outside the blood-brain barrier, it rather by definition producees the same amount of paralysis as it does numbness... it's not targetted to the nerves that signal pain at all over, say, the nerves that let you breathe.
 
oceanbound said:
actually from what i have heard the toxin is a biproduct of the bacteria which live in the "rings" of the spotted octopus. as opposed to residing inside the creatures themselves
so if the blue ring octo didnt have rings than it would just be a sweet little non-deadlypus?


chris
 
Originally posted by Monty
wow, so blue ring venom doesn't work even if it's injected into the bloodstream of another blue ring? I wonder how it resists it... TTX is a really broad neurotoxin; it blocks action potentials in pretty much any neuron I've heard of, including squid giant axons-- do blue rings have modified sodium channels in their axons that are immune to TTX blocking?

Well, according to this researcher, Dr. Peter A. V. Anderson...from his website http://www.ufbi.ufl.edu/Dept/Faculty/AndersonPAV.html

Of particular interest are sodium channels in jellyfish (Phylum Cnidaria) and flatworms (Phylum Platyhelminthes). We have shown that sodium currents in the jellyfish are completely insensitive to the potent sodium channel blocker tetrodotoxin (TTX), while those in flatworms, often considered to be the closest extant relatives of cnidarians, are sensitive to TTX.
 
so many different opinions, so little time !
I'm still not totally sold on the whole "bacteria" thing...let's wait and see how this whole thing pans out.
 
actually i believe you are correct when you say that the bacteria reside in the salivary glands. thanks for the correction. take a look at this site cthulhu77. it also does mention something about the actual rings themselves, which is probably where the confusion came into play.
 
Went to VENOM DOC and Bryan hasn't done a lot of studies on ttx. Since he just found venom in monitors and most iguanids, it may be a while before he gets back to cephs. And I'm still waiting to find what was in the Heros.c that bit me when I was a kid..
 

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