Shellfish toxins - Chemical studies on northern Adriatic mussels

During our investigation on toxic mussels from the Northern Adriatic sea, initiated about ten years ago, a number of polyether toxins have been isolated and characterized, some of which represent new additions to the diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) class of biotoxins and seem to be specific to the Adriatic. In addition, we have also isolated new types of toxins, oxazinins and chlorosulfolipids, whose structures were elucidated by extensive use of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic techniques. Some of them could represent a further risk to public health due to their cytotoxic activity. A liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry (LC-MS) method was proposed for the sensitive, specific and direct detection of yessotoxin and its analogs. In addition, the proposed method allows us highlight the possible presence of new analogs, and enables us to propose an effective structural hypothesis even when full structural elucidation of new toxins by NMR spectroscopy is hampered by the limited amount of material available. ((C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2004).