ABSTRACT
During the last 20 years, marine invertebrates have become the victims of a new race of predators, the chemists, who in alliance with pharmacologists consider them, like land plants, as a potential source of new molecules for the creation of novel drugs. Few pharmacological substances normally use the bloodstream to produce their effect. Thus it is especially important to know their behavior relative to blood and particularly its formed elements. This aspect is fundamental in the case of echinoderms since one of their characteristics is the frequent presence of hemolytic substances. Hemagglutinating properties have sometimes been detected. The hemolytic activity observed with holothuroid and echinoid coelomic fluid has not been related to saponins but to proteins. The cytotoxic action of various holothurins on echinoid eggs involves an interruption of cell multiplication, cytolysis and animalization of larvae. An immune defense system in invertebrates resembling that of mammals, is particularly apparent in echinoderms.
