A Schooner of Science

The Buzz about Nanobees

// September 1st, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Poisons, Recent Research

Nanobee shown at one zillion times magnification.

Bee toxin sucks, in my opinion. As a young lass I was always scanning the grasses for bees whenever we reached the port. I was quite allergic to them – a sting would leave my foot hugely swollen and painful, and I am significantly better at hopping on my left leg as a result of being stung on my right foot. As I grew older and was stung a few more times, the allergy gradually disappeared and now a sting causes nothing but a bit of pain, and a fierce anger at the entomological world.

Perhaps it is time to let this anger abate, as bee venom may become another warrior in the fight against cancer. Crew, meet Melitten. Melitten, Crew.

Melitten is the major component of bee venom, making up over half of the juices in the sting. It is an anti-inflammatory agent and causes the body to release cortisol, the stress hormone. It’s also cell-lytic, which means that it pokes holes in cells and they leak EVERYWHERE and then die. As you may have noticed, it’s a peptide, and the amino acid sequence is GIGAVLKVLTTGLPALISWIKRKRQQ. That’s 26 amino acids of pain.

It’s the cell-lytic part that’s useful, because it’s really not fussy WHAT it breaks apart. If it has a membrane, Melitten is there and filling it more full of holes than a gangster with a semi-automatic. It can be used as an antibacterial or antifungal, plus as an anticancer agent.

To maximise the “anticancer” part and minimise the “attacking the rest of your body” side-effects, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have put the toxin onto little nanoballs of perfluorocarbon, which protects it from degradation in the body. By attaching tumour-specific bits and pieces to the nanoball as well, it is more likely to deposit the Melitten load at the site of the cancer, particularly as tumours often have leaky blood vessels. Perfluorocarbon is not new in biomedical science – it is sometimes used in eye surgery, and is an element in artificial blood.

Mouse trials have been successful. You can read more about the nanobees here.

Oleander – Small Flowering Shrub OF DOOM!

// May 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Poisons

Ahh, Oleander. Nice to say, pretty to look at, but have a nibble and you’ll be dead ten ways from Sunday! They say that it’s the most deadly plant in the world, but I have to say I have a problem with that – there’s probably loads of other really terrible plants in the amazon, like a giant triffid kind of pitcherplant where it bends over and EATS YOU when you’re walking through the jungle.

A Triffid!

Remember the weird knocking sound they made it the old Triffid movie? Now there’s a film that could use a remake, not that there was anything wrong with the old one, but you know… new technology could make a man-killling plant REALLY FREAKING COOL! Another plant deadlier than Oleander is the giant fungus in the X-Files episode entitled “Field Trip”, my favourite X-Files eppy ever. Although I suppose that’s classified as a fungus, not a plant.

Anyway, back to Oleander. There are a lot of wild allegations on the internet about how poisonous Oleander is, and I’m really not sure that all of them are true. Take the following, in order of increasing ludicrousness, and judge for yourself:

You can get sick from inhaling the fumes of burning Oleander wood
Children have died from drinking water in vases full of Oleander flowers
People have died using a twig of Oleander to stir their soup while camping
You can get poisoned from eating honey from bees which have eaten Oleander nectar

I mean, some of these MIGHT be reasonable, but some sound really ridiculous to me. Is it SERIOUSLY that poisonous? SERIOUSLY? Why does it need to be so poisonous? Did it evolve out of a Darwinian need to stop people from using its twigs as toothpicks? I think we need to quantify the claims as to the extreme poisonousness of Oleander with a series of experiments (any volunteers?)

With over 6 types of cardiac poisons, including a really nasty one NAMED after it (Oleandrin) which inhibits cellular Na/K ATPase pumps (always a downer), this is like a hardcore plant of death and destruction. You would think it would be all black and threatening, or at least slightly creepy like the triffids. But no, check it out.

Beautiful and deadly. Nothing sexier than that!

Venomous Vision & Beautiful Bedroom Eyes

// May 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Poisons

Deady Nightshade, also known as Belladonna, is a highly toxic plant. I think we used to have some in the backyard when I was young, and my parents always told me to never eat the berries because they were poisonous – as little as 2 berries can be fatal to a child, though it takes more like 15 to kill an adult.

Back in the good ol’ days women of the fancier kind were taken to putting drops containing Belladonna essence into their eyes to make them all purty, in fact, the words Bella Donna are Italian for Beautiful Lady. One of the signs of Belladonna poisoning is dilated pupils, and that’s also one of the signs of sexual arousal, so it kind of works out. In fact, if you look at the Wikipedia entry for Belladonna, the list of symptoms reads almost like a list of symptoms that you are getting it on or drunk or both: Dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia (heart beating funny), loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention (okay, maybe not that one), constipation (or that one), confusion, hallucinations, delirium, and convulsions (you could get this from getting it on or getting drunk, but preferably the former). People in the olden days were crazy, and if you need any more proof of that check out History’s 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives from Cracked.com.

Still, back then nothing said sexy like putting poison in your eyes, and if you think we’re much more highly evolved and intelligent now than you obviously don’t know much about botox, aka botulinum toxin which is incredibly toxic (but I’ll save that for another post). What price beauty?

Belladonna isn’t all bad though, it’s where we get Atropine from (among other sources, like Mandragora). It turns out that like a lot of chemicals, Atropine can be a hallucinogen, a drug, or a poison depending on how much you take.

A little chemistry for those of us so inclined:

Atropine

Atropine is a racemic mixture, which is odd because it is extracted from plants who tend to pick one isomer and not the other, and after the Thalidomide shocker most drug companies prefer to sell just the one isomer. Most of the effects in this case are from the L-isomer. It can cross the blood-brain barrier which is what leads to the hallucinogenic effects.

Atropine binds as a competitive antagonist to the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, and it’s used in eye tests and surgery to keep the pupils dilated (ew), and to resuscitate people (it increases heart rate, so it’s great for bradycardia). It is also a treatment for organophosphate poisoning, such as insecticides and nerve gas.

And just because this post didn’t already have enough of my favourite things (drugs, sex, natural compounds, enantiomers, and hallucinogens), it turns out Atropine is named after Atropos, the third of the three Fates, who cuts the thread of life and has power over life and death.

The Three Moirae, part of A Golden Thread, John Strudwick, 1885

I likes Greek myths.