2023-05-19 14:03:37
About the episode
Hundreds of people die every year from eating poisonous mushrooms. In 90 percent of those cases, it is the green tuber manite that kills them. It is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world. Not surprising that he has been given nicknames such as King Killer and Death Cap. Centuries ago it was already known how disastrous ingesting the poison of this mushroom was.
If you ingest it, you can count on: vomiting, convulsions, severe liver damage and in the worst case – this probably happened to at least two Roman emperors – death.
Despite this long-standing reputation as a killer, it was not clear until now exactly how the mushroom caused this attack on the body. But when researchers recently discovered a possible antidote, they also discovered more about how the toxin enters our cells.
In search of the antidote, the scientists made genetic changes to human cells in the lab to see which of these changes prevented the toxic chemical compound called alpha-amanitin from doing its job. Cells that lacked a certain protein were found to survive.
Subsequently, it was examined: which substances are known that can block the production of this protein in humans? They arrived at a dye that was actually developed by Kodak in the 1950s and has been used in medical imaging ever since. In a small dose it is safe for humans and in mice (yes, unfortunately in mice) administering it quickly caused that instead of 90 percent, 50 percent died from mushroom poisoning.
It remains to be seen whether this will actually be used as an antidote in humans in the future, but this method for determining the antidote is promising anyway according to many researchers.
Read more about the research here: Deadly mushroom poison might now have an antidote – with help from CRISPR.
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