Dinoflagellate Toxins Responsible for Ciguatera Food Poisoning

: Ciguatera is one of several forms of food poisoning which occurs in humans resulting from the ingestion of toxic fish. The ciguatera syndrome is the result of several toxins accumulated by fish through the food chain from dinoflagellate progenitors. Dinoflagellates produce a variety of toxins, some of which are ion channel inhibitors. In the case of ciguatera, the toxins can be accumulated through the food chain and stored by fish which are eventually consumed by humans. The ingestion of toxic fish produces a variety of digestive and neurological symptoms and sometimes death. The acquisition of reasonable amounts of purified toxins would help to unravel the molecular structure of the toxins, their physiological actions and help to develop effective prophylactic treatment and effective countermeasures against the actions of the toxins. During the second year significant quantities of Gambierdiscus toxicus was grown in large scale culture. Gram levels of cells and toxic extracts were processed in an effort to improve existing purification procedures and to develop new procedures for purification and assay. Also numerous physiological (growth) studies were completed in an effort to improve toxin production by G. Toxicus. Crude and semi-purified toxins were delivered.