The Good and the Bad of Poisonous Plants: an Introduction to the USDA-ARS Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory (PPRL), about the unique services and activities of the PPRL and the potential assistance that they can provide to plant poisoning incidences. The PPRL is a federal research laboratory. It is part of the Agricultural Research Service, the in-house research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The mission of the PPRL is to identify toxic plants and their toxic compounds, determine how the plants poison animals, and develop diagnostic and prognostic procedures for poisoned animals. Furthermore, the PPRL's mission is to identify the conditions under which poisoning occurs and develop management strategies and treatments to reduce losses. Information obtained through research efforts at the PPRL is mostly used by the livestock industry, natural resource managers, veterinarians, chemists, plant and animal scientists, extension personnel, and other state and federal agencies. PPRL currently has 9 scientists and 17 support staff, representing various disciplines consisting of toxicology, reproductive toxicology, veterinary medicine, chemistry, animal science, range science, and plant physiology. This team of scientists provides an interdisciplinary approach to applied and basic research to develop solutions to plant intoxications. While the mission of the PPRL primarily impacts the livestock industry, spinoff benefits such as development of animal models, isolation and characterization of novel compounds, elucidation of biological and molecular mechanisms of action, national and international collaborations, and outreach efforts are significant to biomedical researchers. The staff at the PPRL has extensive knowledge regarding a number of poisonous plants. Although the focus of their knowledge is on plants that affect livestock, oftentimes, these plants are also poisonous to humans, and thus, similar principles could apply for cases of human poisonings. Consequently, the information provided herein could be of benefit to healthcare providers for human cases as well.

A revision of the Old World Black Nightshades (Morelloid clade of Solanum L., Solanaceae)

“…No species of Solanum has been shown to contain tropane alkaloids such as atropine or scopolamine (Tétényi 1987; Pigatto et al 2015), but members of Solanum , including the black nightshades, do contain the nortropane alkaloids known as calystegines (Dräger et al 1994; Pigatto et al 2015). In Solanaceae, these compounds are synthesised along the same pathway as the tropanes, but are not as toxic when tested on laboratory rats (Stegelmeier et al 2008); the finding that they occur in many commonly eaten foods suggests their activity differs from that of the tropanes such as atropine, scopolamine and nicotine (Asano et al 1997; Welch et al 2012). …”

Predicting the distribution of suitable habitat of the poisonous weed Astragalus variabilis in China under current and future climate conditions

“…The US livestock industry lost hundreds of millions of dollars to livestock poisoning caused by poisonous weeds in the 1980s ( Panter et al, 2007 ). Subsequently, the United States government invested heavily in campaigns aimed at the control of poisonous weeds and established the Institute of Poisonous Plants, which specializes in the study of poisonous weed species in natural grasslands, assessment of toxic disasters, and research on technology for the diagnosis and control of poisoning diseases ( Welch et al, 2012 ; Fu et al, 2019 ). As a consequence of these efforts, there are now few reports of livestock poisoning incidents in the United States.…”

Plants that can be Poisonous for Cows. A Review

“…The teratogenic effect of Nicotiana it is considered to be identical to that of Lupinus and Colchicum, by induction of malformations and clef palate on calves, result of reduced fetal movement (Welch et al, 2012), during critical stages of gestation (Dąbrowski et al, 2005).…”