| Abstract | In August 1990, an incident of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning was suspected after 13 people developed gastroenteritis following the consumption of cultured mussels from Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada. Lipid extracts of mussel samples were found to be toxic in a mouse bioassay and analyses by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) established the presence of a high level of the DSP toxin, dinophysistoxin-1 (DTX-1). Conclusive proof of the toxin identity was provided by further experiments, including formation of chemical derivatives with the correct retention times in LC-MS and LC with fluorescence detection, accurate mass measurement using LSIMS mass spectrometry, and proton NMR spectroscopy. Analyses of survey samples showed that the incident was highly localized to one mussel growing lease and that by the end of August, the mussels had depurated ail of their toxin Joad. The most toxic mussels, containing up to 100 µg of DTX-1 per 100 g edible tissue, were harvested on August 3. This suggests that a bloom of toxic plankton may have occurred in July and led to contamination of the mussels. |
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