Neutralizing properties of plant extracts against jellyfish venom

Cnidarian venoms are thought to have therapeutic potential so that the research about these compounds is a field of concern for applicative purposes. Nevertheless, at present the fine composition, the activity and the characterization of venom constituents are greatly unexplored. Cnidarian venoms are complex mixtures of thousands of components, mainly peptides, having specific bond targets. This study aims to evaluate the neutralizing properties of natural products from plants against cnidarian envenomation and induced pain, to develop protective products having topical utilization. The isolation of heterotrichous microbasic eurytele nematocysts from tentacles of Pelagia noctiluca collected in Eastern Tyrrhenian Sicily waters around Messina and venom extraction have been carried out according to published methods. Commercial extracts from Ananas comosus and Carica papaya were formerly evaluated on cultured mouse lung fibroblasts L979 to measure their cytotoxicity by MTT assay and here used to prove protection against cytotoxicity of eurytele nematocysts venom. Eurytele nematocysts induced cytotoxicity with an IC50 of about 40 710exp4 N/mL. The extracts from Ananas comosus and Carica papaya resulted non-toxic, both with an IC50>2000 ug/mL. Ananas comosus extract caused reduction of venom effects at 10 and 100 ug/ml, doubling the amount of surviving cells at the endpoint, while Carica papaya extract was more effective at 100 ug/mL than at 10 ug/mL. These preliminary results show that the studied plant extracts can have an interest in fighting the effects of jellyfish stings and could be good candidates for the preparation of topical products. Further studies in progress in our laboratory will hopefully confirm these first heartening data

A global-scale screening of non-native aquatic organisms to identify potentially invasive species under current and future climate conditions

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147868Science of the Total Environment78814786

A global-scale screening of non-native aquatic organisms to identify potentially invasive species under current and future climate conditions

The threat posed by invasive non-native species worldwide requires a global approach to identify which introduced species are likely to pose an elevated risk of impact to native species and ecosystems. To inform policy, stakeholders and management decisions on global threats to aquatic ecosystems, 195 assessors representing 120 risk assessment areas across all six inhabited continents screened 819 non-native species from 15 groups of aquatic organisms (freshwater, brackish, marine plants and animals) using the Aquatic Species Invasiveness Screening Kit. This multi-lingual decision-support tool for the risk screening of aquatic organisms provides assessors with risk scores for a species under current and future climate change conditions that, following a statistically based calibration, permits the accurate classification of species into high-, medium- and low-risk categories under current and predicted climate conditions. The 1730 screenings undertaken encompassed wide geographical areas (regions, political entities, parts thereof, water bodies, river basins, lake drainage basins, and marine regions), which permitted thresholds to be identified for almost all aquatic organismal groups screened as well as for tropical, temperate and continental climate classes, and for tropical and temperate marine ecoregions. In total, 33 species were identified as posing a ‘very high risk’ of being or becoming invasive, and the scores of several of these species under current climate increased under future climate conditions, primarily due to their wide thermal tolerances. The risk thresholds determined for taxonomic groups and climate zones provide a basis against which area-specific or climate-based calibrated thresholds may be interpreted. In turn, the risk rankings help decision-makers identify which species require an immediate ‘rapid’ management action (e.g. eradication, control) to avoid or mitigate adverse impacts, which require a full risk assessment, and which are to be restricted or banned with regard to importation and/or sale as ornamental or aquarium/fishery enhancement