An Artemia franciscana bioassay for the monitoring of lipophilic phycotoxins in marine bivalve mollusc cultures: An alternative to screening testing?

Abstract

In Brazil, malacoculture is developed mainly in the state of Santa Catarina, followed by São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In the course of the development of Brazilian mariculture, legislation has addressed the sanitary requirements necessary for bivalve commercialization. However, monitoring phycotoxins is a challenge, due to often costly reference methods. In this context, this study evaluated the use of alternative ecotoxicological and bioanalytical methods using Artemia franciscana (brine shrimp) lethality assessments. The results confirm that, although correlations between the reference mouse assay and the brine shrimp assays were not high, the alternative brine shrimp assay may be incorporated into phycotoxin monitoring programs, as hepatopancreas methanolic extracts of mussel (Perna perna) containing DSP resulted in high lethality rates. Therefore, further methodological adjustment studies and the inclusion of other enzymatic and toxicological models are required to further assess these differences, and associations between ecotoxicological methods as early-alarm methods are encouraged.

Comparative growth of two mussels farmed in the macrotidal mangroves of the Amazon

“…Bivalve mollusks are farmed to produce healthy food to meet the demands of a growing world population. Several species of these organisms are targets of extractivism and farming around the world (COLOMBO et al, 2016;GUARALDE et al, 2020). The farming of these bivalves is the most productive form of aquaculture in salt water (IGARASHI, 2019) and is practiced in Europe, the Americas, China, Japan, India, and countries of Southeast Asia that have coastal waters (CEBU, 2016).…”