A 3-year-old female Cocker Spaniel dog acutely developed hepatopathy following ingestion of root of Cycad (Cycas revoluta). Seven hours after the ingestion, she showed acute continuous nausea, vomiting, and marked depression and was presented to the local veterinary clinic. At physical evaluation, the dog showed moderate weakness, pale mucous membrane, jaundice, and dehydration. Serum biochemic...

Introduction β-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), is a neurotoxin and a nonproteinogenic amino acid. BMAA has been identified and quantified in cycad seeds and cyanobacteria by Rosen et al. using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry without pre-derivatisation. Kushnir et al. has also developed a quantitative analysis of BMAA with iTRAQ reagent as derivative in biological samples and plant ...

Western Pacific amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism-dementia complex, a disappearing neurodegenerative disease linked to use of the neurotoxic cycad plant for food and/or medicine, is intensively studied because the neuropathology (tauopathy) is similar to that of Alzheimer's disease. Cycads contain neurotoxic and genotoxic principles, notably cycasin and methylazoxymethanol, the lat...

We have used cultured ventral mesencephalic and cerebellar granule cells to test the toxicity of extracts of cycad seeds (genus Cycas) and cycad-derived flours traditionally prepared in Guam. There was no significant difference in the toxicity of extracts prepared from the female gametophyte tissue of C. circinalis, C. revoluta, and C. media, common wheat flour, and 13 of 17 cycad flour samples...

These compounds are extractable from seeds and roots of cycad plants Cycads are ancient gymnospermous plants which are con sidered an intermediate form in plant evolution from ferns to flowering plants. Study of fossils indicates that cycads were distributed widely throughout the world in the early mesozoic period, i.e., about 200 million years ago. The cycads which can be found today are essen...

Many herbivorous Lepidoptera accumulate plant toxins within their own tissues as a defensive strategy. Pioneering research in this area was conducted by Miriam Rothschild and Deane Bowers, who showed that the cycad-feeding butterfly Eumaeus atala sequester toxic compound cycasin thereby deter vertebrate invertebrate predators. The current study focuses on another cycad compound, β-methylamino-L...

As root symbionts of cycad trees, cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc produce beta-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA), a neurotoxic nonprotein amino acid. The biomagnification of BMAA through the Guam ecosystem fits a classic triangle of increasing concentrations of toxic compounds up the food chain. However, because BMAA is polar and nonlipophilic, a mechanism for its biomagnification through increasi...