Audiobook

Jan 13, 2025 | biology, earth and environment

About this episode

The oceans, huge and brimming with diverse lifeforms, pose no less a struggle for survival for their inhabitants than that faced by creatures on dry land. Evolution has furnished marine organisms with huge array of defensive, and indeed, offensive adaptations to help them to thrive in this battleground. Among the organisms who live and compete in the ocean are dinoflagellates. These are small, single-celled creatures that are an important component of plankton found in marine ecosystems. Despite their tiny size, dinoflagellates such as Karlodinium veneficum can wield potent biochemical weaponry that gives them an edge against other competing organisms. Decades since the discovery of the toxic properties of Karlodinium veneficum, researchers such as Dr. Allen Place of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, and his colleagues, have begun to unravel the secrets of its potent toxins, called karlotoxins. Their findings offer fascinating insights into the interactions of marine life and the weapons they adopt to capture prey and deter predators. More

Original Article Reference

This Audio is a summary of the paper ‘Sterolysin from a 1950s culture of Karlodinium veneficum (aka Gymnodinium veneficum Ballantine) forms lethal sterol dependent membrane pores’, in Scientific Reports, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-68669-0  

Contact

For further information, you can connect with Dr Allen Place at place@umces.edu

 

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