Tags: Chemical Compound, Chemical Substance.
Aplysiatoxin is a cyanotoxin produced by certain cyanobacteria species. It is used as a defensive secretion to protect these cyanobacteria from predation by fish being a potent irritant and carcinogen by acting as a powerful activator of Protein kinase C. While this action has a tumour-promoting effect protein kinase C activation can be medically beneficial for some other applications and synthetic analogues of aplysiatoxin have ironically been researched for anti-cancer effects.