Hunt for Palytoxins in a Wide Variety of Marine Organisms Harvested in 2010 on the French Mediterranean Coast

Abstract

During the summer of 2010, 31 species including fish, echinoderms, gastropods, crustaceans, cephalopods and sponges were sampled in the Bay of Villefranche on the French Mediterranean coast and screened for the presence of PLTX-group toxins using the haemolytic assay. Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used for confirmatory purposes and to determine the toxin profile. The mean toxin concentration in the whole flesh of all sampled marine organisms, determined using the lower- (LB) and upper-bound (UB) approach was 4.3 and 5.1 µg·kg−1, respectively, with less than 1% of the results exceeding the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) threshold of 30 µg·kg−1 and the highest values being reported for sea urchins (107.6 and 108.0 µg·kg−1). Toxins accumulated almost exclusively in the digestive tube of the tested species, with the exception of octopus, in which there were detectable toxin amounts in the remaining tissues (RT). The mean toxin concentration in the RT of the sampled organisms (fishes, echinoderms and cephalopods) was 0.7 and 1.7 µg·kg−1 (LB and UB, respectively), with a maximum value of 19.9 µg·kg−1 for octopus RT. The herbivorous and omnivorous organisms were the most contaminated species, indicating that diet influences the contamination process, and the LC-MS/MS revealed that ovatoxin-a was the only toxin detected.

Establishing the link between <em>Ostreopsis</em> cf.<em>ovata</em> blooms and human health impacts using ecology and epidemiology

“…Ciminiello et al 2008, Rossi et al 2010. These PLTX-like compounds have been detected in Mediterranean marine fauna (Aligizaki et al 2011, Amzil et al 2012, Biré et al 2013, Biré et al 2015, suggesting the potential risk of biotoxin accumulation in seafood. For this reason, the Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CON-TAM Panel) of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA 2009) assessed the risks to human health associated with the presence of PLTX-group biotoxins in shellfish, although the European regulation to monitor PLTX has not yet become established.…”

Microbial dynamics during harmful dinoflagellate Ostreopsis cf. ovata growth: Bacterial succession and viral abundance pattern

“…Blooms occur during summer‐late summer often in moderate anthropogenic impacted sites (Accoroni & Totti, ; Accoroni et al., ; Marini, Fornasiero, & Artegiani, ), and they can have a severe impact on human health (Funari et al., ; Kermarec et al., and references therein) and on invertebrate benthic communities (Accoroni et al., ; Carella et al., ; Migliaccio et al., ). Toxin accumulation has been reported in macrofauna (Aligizaki, Katikou, Milandri, & Diogene, ; Biré et al., ; Furlan et al., ), yet no connected food poisoning has been shown.…”

Marine Neurotoxins: a Double-edged Sword in Food Industry and Brain Research

“…Palytoxin (PLTX) is a potent non-protein marine compound produced by corals of the genus Palythoa and by dinoflagellates of the genus Ostreopsis [37] . Several PLTX analogues have been identified so far, either from Palythoa or from Ostreopsis [38] . PLTX acts on the Na + -K + -ATPase (sodium pump), thus allows passive transport of both Na + and K + , resulting in an imbalance of the ion gradient that is essential for most cells.…”