Amphibians like toads have been known to secrete antimicrobial secretions outside their body into their environments, through skin pores and parotid glands. Toad skin-secretions contain four types of compounds namely, biogenic amines, bufadienolides, alkaloids & steroids and peptides & proteins. Bulk of research relating to amphibian antimicrobial secretions has been done on frogs. In toads, such research has only been done in South America, Europe and China. Antimicrobial secretions vary considerably from specie-to-specie and drastically across various biomes. This prompted us to examine and confirm presence of antimicrobial activity (if any) in Indian Common Toad (Bufo melanostictus Schneider 1799) skin secretions since; no such... |