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ABSTRACT
Tetrodon cutcutia is a fresh water fish available in the beels of the River Brahmaputra. It contains a non-proteinous toxin called tetrodotoxin. Collected from Dhemaji beel near the southern bank of Brahmaputra, the liver, muscle and skin of the fishes showed different lethal potency when administered on cockroaches. Crude extraction of tetrodotoxin from different tissues separately administered with food such as honey & sugar indicates rate of mortality differently. The contaminated food with the extraction of liver & skin causes mortality of cockroaches of same age group, 90% and 80% respectively at stipulated time. Extractions of muscles have little impact on cockroaches. The extractions are made in simple and crude method. The liver, muscle and skins are separated from live Tetrodon and homogenized and centrifuged at 20,000 RPM for 15 minutes. Mixing the tissues with 1.5 times of the weight of the tissue with double distilled water containing 0.5% acetic acid. The supernatant is heated upto 90°C stirring continuously to separate the protein contents present in the supernatant. Now the filtered solution is treated as tetrodotoxin.The composition of the toxin &purification is yet to be ascertained.
KEYWORDS : Tetrodotoxin, Tetrodoncutcutia, and EffectonCockroaches (Periplaneta americana)
In biological research, plant products are commonly used to observe the effect on animals, but uses of animal product to animal is rare phenomenon. It is well known to all that certain chemical products which are produced by animals are beneficial to human being and certain products which cause tremendous harm to human, even death.
Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is also a toxic substance secreted mainly by Tetrodon & other certain group of animals. The name derives from tetrodontiformes an order of bony fishes, which includes globe fishes, porcupine fishes, tetrodon, ocean mola and tiger fishes etc. Besides these fishes tetrodotoxin is also found in (a) gastropod mollusc (b) egg of horse shoe crabs (c) Newts of genus Taricha (d) the skin of atelopid frogs (e) Skin and viscera of blue ringed octopus and some species of salamanders (Noguchi and Miyazawa,2005).
To date little is known regarding the biosynthesis of TTX. No one has isolated enzyme responsible for the biosynthesis there are two ideas regarding the synthesis of tetrodotoxin.
It is mentioned above that tetrodotoxin is found in different groups...