How Poison Frogs Avoid Poisoning Themselves
In Abby Olena’s article “How Poison Frogs Avoid Poisoning Themselves” is an article explaining the studies and the findings of biologist that have found about poisonous frogs. Abby Olena specifically talks about an evolutionary biologist, named Rebecca Tarvin, and some of her colleagues that are researching how poisonous frogs can avoid poisoning themselves. A few points the article makes are how they become poisonous, the evolution of the amino acid sequence, and the understanding of consequences from evolving.
This article begins by explaining how frogs become poisonous. Frogs become poisonous by separating chemicals in the foods they digest and storing them into their skin cells. One of the chemicals …show more content…
For the scientists to understand the consequences, they had to mutate the sequence of a human nicotinic acetylcholine receptor to replace the frog’s receptors and vice versa. They found by changing the receptors of the frogs made them less sensitive to the toxin. However, it also made them less responsive to the proteins that are produced by the body. Michael Pfrender, an evolutionary biologist, says, “The intriguing thing that they show that they don’t really solve is that when they put these mutations in a human background or in the frog background, they behave somewhat differently. That’s one of the unresolved questions: how much does genetic background play a role in what mutations are effective?” When the scientists created these mutations, they didn’t think about how the rest of the organism adapted to it for so long. The frog became less sensitive to the toxins after the mutation because evolution is a progressive thing. The frog had evolved itself to be able to surround itself in toxins to protect itself against predators. When the mutation was added to the frog and the toxin was distributed to its body, the frog showed little sensitivity because the rest of the organism adapted as well. The slightest alterations wouldn’t cause big consequences. The article then explains how Tarvin plans to explore all the questions and comments from other …show more content…
Scientists conducting the investigation could identify how the poisonous frog can avoid poisoning itself. They explained in the article that it is an evolutionary change in their amino acids allowing the frogs to be immune to the toxin, epibatidine, produced through separating the chemicals in their food and storing them into their skin. The second question the scientists were trying to answer during their investigation was: How do the evolutionary alterations of the frog’s amino acids affect the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, especially when they were replaced with a mutated receptor? The scientists were unable to answer the question because there were other variables they didn’t take into consideration before performing the experiment. They explained in the article that they made a mutation of the receptors within the frog and mutated it with a receptor from a human. When they did the mutation, the frog wasn’t poisoned. Instead, it became less sensitive to the toxin. Other scientists, who did not work on the project, concluded that it may have been because of the background of the frog and how the amount of toxins injected into the frog wasn’t enough to cause harm.
The paper does make references to other articles with similar keywords. However, some of the
In Abby Olena’s article “How Poison Frogs Avoid Poisoning Themselves” is an article explaining the studies and the findings of biologist that have found about poisonous frogs. Abby Olena specifically talks about an evolutionary biologist, named Rebecca Tarvin, and some of her colleagues that are researching how poisonous frogs can avoid poisoning themselves. A few points the article makes are how they become poisonous, the evolution of the amino acid sequence, and the understanding of consequences from evolving.
This article begins by explaining how frogs become poisonous. Frogs become poisonous by separating chemicals in the foods they digest and storing them into their skin cells. One of the chemicals …show more content…
For the scientists to understand the consequences, they had to mutate the sequence of a human nicotinic acetylcholine receptor to replace the frog’s receptors and vice versa. They found by changing the receptors of the frogs made them less sensitive to the toxin. However, it also made them less responsive to the proteins that are produced by the body. Michael Pfrender, an evolutionary biologist, says, “The intriguing thing that they show that they don’t really solve is that when they put these mutations in a human background or in the frog background, they behave somewhat differently. That’s one of the unresolved questions: how much does genetic background play a role in what mutations are effective?” When the scientists created these mutations, they didn’t think about how the rest of the organism adapted to it for so long. The frog became less sensitive to the toxins after the mutation because evolution is a progressive thing. The frog had evolved itself to be able to surround itself in toxins to protect itself against predators. When the mutation was added to the frog and the toxin was distributed to its body, the frog showed little sensitivity because the rest of the organism adapted as well. The slightest alterations wouldn’t cause big consequences. The article then explains how Tarvin plans to explore all the questions and comments from other …show more content…
Scientists conducting the investigation could identify how the poisonous frog can avoid poisoning itself. They explained in the article that it is an evolutionary change in their amino acids allowing the frogs to be immune to the toxin, epibatidine, produced through separating the chemicals in their food and storing them into their skin. The second question the scientists were trying to answer during their investigation was: How do the evolutionary alterations of the frog’s amino acids affect the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, especially when they were replaced with a mutated receptor? The scientists were unable to answer the question because there were other variables they didn’t take into consideration before performing the experiment. They explained in the article that they made a mutation of the receptors within the frog and mutated it with a receptor from a human. When they did the mutation, the frog wasn’t poisoned. Instead, it became less sensitive to the toxin. Other scientists, who did not work on the project, concluded that it may have been because of the background of the frog and how the amount of toxins injected into the frog wasn’t enough to cause harm.
The paper does make references to other articles with similar keywords. However, some of the