The last time I visited the Pacific Northwest, I certainly saw enough
banana slugs all around. I have never heard of any noticeable toxic
effects of the mucous and I had no hesitation handling them. Do you
have any reason to suspect toxins? Do insects not survive well
walking over the mucous trail? The problem is that if there are
any effects, they are likely to be mild and therefore hard to detect.
What to try depends on your experience with electrophysiology
and availability of equipment.
Certainly the first thing I would try is looking at peripheral nerve
to see an axonal effect. The nerve segments isolated from lobster
legs (or, more likely in your area, from crab legs) have few enough
axons to readily see individual action potentials (unlike, say, the
frog sciatic compound action potential). How long does the nerve
survive in a saline dosed with mucous, compared to straight saline?
I regularly do this with my undergraduate physiology classes
Another thing would be to look at the spontaneous activity in, say,
a crayfish or lobster abdominal nerve cord, or the abdominal nerve
cord of a large roach. Again, just get an idea of the effect of
dropping mucous extracts on the cord. Again, I regularly do this
with classes, sprinkling some cigarette tobacco shreds into the
perfusion solution until it is yellow-brown. This is likely to expose
a synaptic effect.
A third thing would be to inject extracts into insects to see the
effect. I had a student do this with centipede toxin -- he would
collect local centipedes, dissect out the toxin gland, macerate
it in a small volume of insect perfusion solution, and inject
about 1 microliter volumes into crickets that were waxed on
the end of a long thin stick to hold them stationary. There
definitely was a proteinaceous toxin, but the effect was far
overshadowed by a proteinaceous proteolytic enzyme.
Who would be the likely target of such a toxin? Predators?
Who eats these slugs? The problem is you are not likely
to get permission from the vertebrate animal review
committee to try much of anything with any mammal or
even with a bird until you had some really good evidence
of a potentially valuable active element.
There is a volume in the Academic Press "Methods in
Neurosciences" which I believe is specifically on toxicology.
However it is in the lab and I am home. I'll post the
reference tomorrow.
Good luck with the project!
Brian MacNevin wrote in message <7gnf5k$amt$1 at ra.cc.wwu.edu>...
> I wish to examine the banana slug mucous secretions for
neurotoxic
>effects, but I am having trouble tracking down an effective yes/no
method of
>testing this. Does anyone here happen to have any ideas or
references?
>Thanks in advance!
> Sincerely,
> Brian MacNevin
>>--
>Brian MacNevin
>Biology Department
>Western Washington University
>Bellingham, WA 98225-9160
>USA
>macnevin at cc.wwu.edu>Tel: (360) 650-7465
>>