Recent developments in analytical chemistry of marine toxins

Marine toxins present a significant challenge to the analytical chemist due to their wide variety of structures, ranging from very polar to lipophilic and from low to high molecular weights. This has resulted in a patchwork quilt of bioassays and chemical methods being used to monitor for toxins in plankton and in seafood. Due to the difficulty and cost of implementing many of these methods, government inspection agencies are having a great difficulty meeting demands. This paper discusses an important advance in analytical techology that can help with these problems. The technique of LC-MS, a combination of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, has proven to be a powerful tool for the detection and quantitation of toxins in plankton and shellfish at part-per-billion levels, the identification of new toxins, and the investigation of toxin metabolism in shellfish. LC-MS methods have been developed for the following toxins: domoic acid and other ASP toxins; okadaic acid and related DSP toxins, including DTX1-5 toxins; pectenotoxins; yessotoxin; saxitoxin and other PSP toxins; brevetoxins; spirolides; and ciguatoxins. LC-MS is in fact the only analytical method that has been shown to be suitable for the analysis of all toxins.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye