Toxic Myco-stories

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Toxic Myco-stories

_http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/_

(http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/)

 

Mycotoxins are among the most toxic natural products. They are fungal

adaptations to enhance competition with bacteria and insects, but they can be

very

effective in injuring the nervous system and organs of humans and may result

in persistent debilitating syndromes.

 

In retrospect, I must admit that I have spent much of my academic life

working with lower life forms. When I entered graduate school in molecular

biology, I was willing to work on anything, but fungi and plants. At that time,

James Watson had claimed that only nucleic acids and proteins were worthy of

study by molecular biologists, because that was the scope of The Central Dogma,

DNA to RNA to protein. So of course, I ended up studying the carbohydrates

(glucan elicitors) of fungal walls that are detected by plants to signal an

infection. It was part of the molecular biology of host-pathogen interactions

and

of plant disease resistance. People now buy fungal/yeast glucans as

supplements to enhance (read cause inflammation in) their immune systems.

 

Turning on plant disease resistant reactions by pathogens or my glucan

elicitor points out one of the most misunderstood aspects of plants -- they are

dangerous! Afterall, most of the drugs and nasty compounds that are used come

from plants. If you want to really make sure that a greenhouse is dead, dead,

dead -- no insects at all, you can bring out the heavy guns and spray with

nicotine. Nicotine is so nasty and deadly, that full body protection is needed

for the sprayer. Just recall all of the nasty plant extracts that are used to

kill people in murder mysteries. What could be more deadly that ricin from

castor beans? Plants are not safe to touch, let alone eat -- they are full of

compounds that kill or maim potential plant eaters and should never be

trusted. Plants are more sensitive to my glucan elicitor than they are to their

own

plant hormones and their reaction is a slew of more toxins -- sick potatoes

are a significant source of nasty compounds that cause birth defects. So, be

careful eating sick plants, especially if you are pregnant and be even more

careful feeding plants to unsuspecting pets.

 

While I am on the subject of pregnant women, we should spend a moment on

morning sickness. The smell of cooking plants makes pregnant women, especially

in the first trimester, evacuate their stomach, i.e. vomit. The point is that

women have an important reflex to block them from eating food that will

injure their developing fetus. During the first trimester, fetuses are very

sensitive to plant compounds that cause disruption of development, teratogens.

The

pregnant woman’s sensory system associates smelling plant compounds with

eating plants and eliminates potential teratogens in the stomach. Pregnant women

would be well advised to avoid their veggies, especially early in pregnancy.

Plants are not always healthfoods -- women store fat for a pregnancy to help

them feed their fetus without the need to eat potentially dangerous food.

 

Fungi including those forming fruiting structures, such as mushrooms, eat by

secreting enzymes and absorbing the digested products. They have to compete

with bacteria for the fruits of their secretory labors, so they poison the

competition with the cheapest toxins possible, i.e. small molecules with high

toxicity. When I was gathering mushrooms in the verdant moss strewn forests on

the islands of Stockholm’s archipelago, I picked only the ones that were

friends and avoided their lethal brethren. The toxins are legion, including the

“

brain lesioning agent,†ibotenic acid of Amanita muscaria, that can also be

used to kill flies, phalloidin from A. phalloides, that locks up the

cytoskeleton and all of the recreational shrooms that bring California trippers

to

the microclimates of the Idaho hop yards. The sensory and nervous system of

animals are high value targets for fungal toxins.

 

While in Missouri, studying bacterial plant pathogens, I befriended Art

Karr, who was studying the most lethal of the mycotoxins, aflatoxin. He was

using

the fluorescence of the aflatoxins to permit their detection after thin

layer chromatography. Subsequently, after I had moved to Harvard, I

collaborated

with Art to design a fluorescent immunological method using antibodies

produced by Gerald Wogen, another collaborator from MIT, for the quantitation

of

aflatoxin in corn. The aflatoxin detection kits became the first product of our

company, Vital Technologies, Inc. Measuring aflatoxin in corn was a big

deal, because this mycotoxin was what stopped corn production in southern

states

of the US. and blocked many international shipments of corn. Aflatoxins also

have been implicated in many peanut-based diseases/cancers in Africa and even

in kwashiorkor, a wasting disease normally associated with malnutrition.

 

Sick building syndrome has been attributed in some cases to the house mold,

Stachybotrys chartarum and its toxins. These macrocyclic trichothecene toxins

cause diverse acute and chronic neurological symptoms and may contribute to

such elusive diseases as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), multiple chemical

sensitivity (MCS), fibromyalgia (FM) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In each syndrome, an acute, stessful experience compromises the nervous and

immune system, and subsequently a chronic phase persists.

 

About Me

 

Dr. Art Ayers.

I grew up in San Diego and was in the first class at UCSD. I did my PhD with

Peter Albersheim (MCDB, U. Colo. Boulder) characterizing the B-1,3-1,6

glucan family of fungal elicitors of plant phytoalexins and subsequently held

postdoctoral research positions at the Swedish Forest Products Research

Laboratories Stockholm (discovery of cellobiose dehydrogenase), U. Missouri,

Colombia

(immunological characterization of the fireblight toxin) and Kansas State U.

(regeneration of plants from single potato leaf cells). I was an assistant

professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology Department at Harvard

University and an associate professor and Director of the Genetic Engineering

Program

at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA. Then I joined the faculty at the

College of Idaho in 1991. In 1997-98 I spent a six-month sabbatical at the

National University of Singapore using in situ hybridization to identify the

shoot

primordial cells in stem segments grown in tissue culture. More recently I

have focused on heparan sulfate proteoglycans and a broader examination of the

role of these molecules in inflammation and disease.

 

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