Our latest article published in 2021 reports the investigation on the occurrence of tetrodotoxin (TTX) in the tissues of the anuran Brachycephalus pitanga and the anuran microbiome. This article results from the post-doctoral project of Dr. Luciane Alessandra Chimetto Tonon, funded by FAPESP, in collaboration with Professor Celio Haddad at the Biosciences Institute of the State University of São Paulo at Rio Claro.

Although B. pitanga is a very small animal (the size of the little finger nail), we have been able, with a small number of animals (only eight), to detect TTX in its skin and viscera. We have also isolated 80 bacteria strains. Metagenomic and genomic analysis of B. pitanga bacteria diversity indicated a unique microbiome of the animal. However, we have not been able to detect the presence of TTX in cultures of several bacteria representatives which have been cultivated and the extracted growth media analyzed by UPLC-HRMS. Read the article here.