Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am researching frogs and their peptide antibiotic skin secretions. I was hoping to be able to compare the frog secretions to human saliva for my science project, however to do this project, I am going to need a large amount of frog skin secretions. Does anybody know where or how I would be able to obtain these frog skin secretions? Thanks. Lizz

Hi,

Sorry no one has answered your post in several days. I am not an expert on frog secretions, but I suspect one solution to your problem is to acquire and keep some frogs as “pets”. Looking around I found this info from PETCO:

http://www.petco.com/caresheets/amphibi ... ntella.pdf

This sheet suggests contacting them might enable you to find a source to buy some.

If you search the internet there are sources from which you can buy frogs:

http://www.exotic-pets.co.uk/frogs-for-sale.html

http://www.ehow.com/video_4971622_where ... frogs.html

http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/resources ... rcial.html

Carolina Biological Supply appears to have a good reputation for assisting science fair participants:
http://www.carolina.com/nav/p/category/ ... word=frogs

I hope these ideas help, though I should not be considered an authoritative source on this subject.

Best regards,

Barrett Tomlinson

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my question and giving me some valuable information.

I did look at all of the websites, however I came across another problem: How to get the frogs to secrete enough of the antimicrobial secretions for me to accurately test a sample. I did do some research concerning this problem and i found that the frog's secretions are used as a defense and thus to obtain the secretions the frog's sympathetic system must be stimulated. Most of the articles I read concerning this topic used mild electrical stimulation or injected the frog with epinephrine. However, after talking to my science research teacher, I found that these methods of artificially stimulating the frog are not allowed in the science competitions that I must enter. In these science fairs, all vertebrate studies are not allowed to harm or cause any discomfort to the animal.

So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on a way that I might be able to obtain synthetic secretions or a way to obtain ample amounts from live frogs that doesn't cause any harm whatsoever to the frog.

Thanks,
Liz

Hi Liz,

I requested ScienceBuddies to find an expert answer for you, but after several days it does not look likely they will respond. Personally I don’t think you can buy this material - it sounds too specialized. It would not hurt to enquire of your favorite biological supply houses to see if they can help you though.

Here is a wild idea that might work. First, write a really good research proposal. While doing this find some recent research papers written about the species of frog whose secretions you want to study. Then write a very well crafted letter to the author of the paper who has written about your favored frog species explaining your need and asking for his/her help. If you are extremely lucky, the scientist might be interested in your research proposal and decide to help you out by supplying a sample of what you need, or suggest a way for you to find a sample.

Otherwise you either need to convince your science fair research committee that the voltage involved in getting the frog to secrete is too low to cause discomfort, or you need to find another project idea.

Sorry that all these ieas sound like long shots to me, but they are the best that I can come up with.

Good luck!!!

Barrett Tomlinson

I found this paper, which describes how the skin secretions work against MRSA. They sacrificed the frogs and used the skins, not just the secretions. http://www.yakhteh.org/files/Abbasi.pdf It doesn't sound like you will be able to do that, either, but I think it is a great idea (posted above) to contact the researcher and see if they would be willing to send you some for your experiements.

I looked alot of places to help you find this material. I believe it is possible that it needs to be used fresh, and cannot be frozen, so there is no way to supply this to users other than for the researcher to generate it fresh. i am not sure, but if you contact a researcher for some scretion they may be able to advise youon this.

Also, you might research if there are any types of frogs that release their secretion constantly, and so they would not need to be stimulated in order to secrete.