In warm, sunny weather, certain marine algae along American coasts and elsewhere can flourish into harmful algal blooms, producing a substance known as saxitoxin. This neurotoxin is deadly for many animals, and is the cause of paralytic shellfish poisoning in people who eat contaminated seafood.
But an unlikely animal has an antidote: the American bullfrog ( Rana catesbeiana ), which probably also encounters the toxin in its freshwater habitats.
A jab of a protein produced by the frog rescued mice from a deadly dose of the toxin, researchers report July 16 in Nature Communications . Previous research had shown that the protein, called…
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