The first report on some toxic effects of green scat, Scatophagus argus an Iranian Persian Gulf venomous fish

Green scat namely as Scatophagus argus is a venomous aquarium fish belonging to Scatophagidae family. It can induce painful wounds in injured hand with partial paralysis to whom that touch the spines. Dorsal and ventral rough spines contain cells that produce venom with toxic activities. According to unpublished data collected from local hospitals in southern coastal region of Iran, S. argus is reported as a venomous fish. Envenomation induces clinical symptoms such as local pain, partial paralysis, erythema and itching. In the present study green scat (spotted scat) was collected from Persian Gulf coastal waters. SDS-PAGE indicated 12 distinct bands in the venom ranged between 7 and 250 kDa. The crude venom had hemolytic activity on human erythrocytes (1%) with an LC100 (Lytic Concentration) of about 1.7 mu g. The crude venom can release 813 mu g protein from 0.5% casein. Phospholipase C activity was recorded at 3.125 mu g of total venom. Our findings showed that the edematic activity remained over 24 h after injection. The results demonstrated that crude venom extracted from Iranian coastal border has different toxic and enzymatic activities. This study is pending to further investigation on animal model regarding protein purification and in vivo studies. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.