Semiautomated Method for the Analysis of PSP Toxins in Shellfish

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Abstract
The method uses an autoanalyzer continuous flow reaction system to oxidize toxin in standard acid extracts of shellfish, prepared for mouse bioassay, to derivatives which are detected by fluorescence. Oxidation is by periodic acid under alkaline (NH4OH) conditions and is followed by acidification by acetic acid. Concentrations of 10 μg/100g toxin and above can be measured with good reproducibility and accuracy: coefficient of variation was 9.5% for samples with 60 μg/100g or greater. Correlation with the mouse bioassay was 0.82 for 204 samples (toxin from 0–2000 μg/100g). The method is proposed to screen shellfish samples for PSP toxins with only samples falling into the range 60–250 μg/100g being subject to the more tedious and expensive mouse bioassay.