| Abstract | During 2002 and 2003, poisoning incidents caused by the consumption of snail Nassarius spp.were reported in Fujian Province and Jiangsu Province, China. After observation of the symptoms in the victims it was suspected that PSP toxins were involved, and the toxicity screening of the snail samples with mouse bioassay method for monitoring of PSP toxins gave numbers exceeding 10,000MU/100g tissue (wet weight). However, no PSP toxins were detected after analysis of snail samples using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with post-column derivatization. The toxins in Nassarius spp. were finally identified as tetrodotoxin (TTX), after re-analysis of the samples using HPLC coupled with a mass detector. The derivatives of TTX in toxic snail samples were also analyzed, using HPLC coupled with a triple quadrupole mass detector (API 4000), in the mode of precursor ion scan and product ion scan. Two isomers of trideoxyTTX, two isomers of TTX, two isomers of 11-oxoTTX, anhydroTTX and trace amounts of deoxyTTX were identified from the toxic snail samples. Analytical methods using select ion monitoring and select reaction monitoring targeted on these compounds were then developed |
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