Effects On Animals
Margatoxin leads to the depolarization of human and pig cells in vitro. By blocking 99% of the KV1.3-channels, margatoxin inhibits the proliferation response of T-cells in mini-swine. Furthermore it suppresses a B-cell response to allogenic immunization and inhibits the delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction to tuberculin. In pigs, the protein’s half-life is two hours. When the peptide is continuously infused, it leads to diarrhea and hypersalivation. However, no major toxic effects are observed in animals. In contrast to when the plasma concentration of margatoxin is higher than 10nM, the transient hyperactivity occurs in pigs. It might be an effect of Kv1.1 and Kv1.2 channels in the brain.
Read more about this topic: Margatoxin
Famous quotes containing the words effects and/or animals:
“Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Of all the animals with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercised more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means which she affords to the relieving these necessities.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)