Palytoxin and analogues: biological effects and detection.

The early work of Drs. Philip Helrich, Paul Scheuer, Alfred Banner and others at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960’s on their newly-discovered compound that was soon to be known as “palytoxin” was stimulated by an early Hawaiian legend. According to this legend, in a certain rocky tide pool on the island of Maui, in the district of Hana, there lived an alga the locals called “limu-make-o-Hana”, roughly translated as “the deadly seaweed of Hana”. The location of the pool was known to only a few, and visiting it was considered taboo by the Hawaiian native population. Locating the pool was challenging, but their efforts were rewarded in 1961 by the discovery of a new species of zoanthid soft coral, Palythoa toxica, and the toxin it produced. Although the literature contains references to toxins from samples of zoanthids prior to this (Hashimoto, et al 1969), the seminal paper by Moore and Scheuer (1971) described palytoxin as a new marine natural product for the first time, and is generally considered the beginning of research in this area. Since then, palytoxin has fascinated researchers for the complexity of its structure, its extreme potency, and its intriguing mechanism of action.