Hunt for Palytoxins in a Wide Variety of Marine Organisms Harvested in 2010 on the French Mediterranean Coast
Ronel Biré,
Sophie Trotereau,
Rodolphe Lemée,
Davide Oregioni,
Christine Delpont,
Sophie Krys,
Thierry Guérin
Affiliations
Ronel Biré
University of Paris-Est, ANSES, Maisons-Alfort Laboratory for Food Safety, Department of Chemical Contaminants in Food, Pesticides and Marine Biotoxins Unit, 14 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 94706 Maisons-Alfort Cedex, France
Sophie Trotereau
University of Paris-Est, ANSES, Maisons-Alfort Laboratory for Food Safety, Department of Chemical Contaminants in Food, Pesticides and Marine Biotoxins Unit, 14 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 94706 Maisons-Alfort Cedex, France
Rodolphe Lemée
Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche sur mer, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche CNRS UMR 7093, 181 Chemin du Lazaret 06230 Villefranche-sur-mer, France
Davide Oregioni
Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche sur mer, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche CNRS UMR 7093, 181 Chemin du Lazaret 06230 Villefranche-sur-mer, France
Christine Delpont
University of Paris-Est, ANSES, Maisons-Alfort Laboratory for Food Safety, Department of Chemical Contaminants in Food, Pesticides and Marine Biotoxins Unit, 14 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 94706 Maisons-Alfort Cedex, France
Sophie Krys
University of Paris-Est, ANSES, Maisons-Alfort Laboratory for Food Safety, Department of Chemical Contaminants in Food, Pesticides and Marine Biotoxins Unit, 14 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 94706 Maisons-Alfort Cedex, France
Thierry Guérin
University of Paris-Est, ANSES, Maisons-Alfort Laboratory for Food Safety, Department of Chemical Contaminants in Food, Pesticides and Marine Biotoxins Unit, 14 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 94706 Maisons-Alfort Cedex, France
During the summer of 2010, 31 species including fish, echinoderms, gastropods, crustaceans, cephalopods and sponges were sampled in the Bay of Villefranche on the French Mediterranean coast and screened for the presence of PLTX-group toxins using the haemolytic assay. Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used for confirmatory purposes and to determine the toxin profile. The mean toxin concentration in the whole flesh of all sampled marine organisms, determined using the lower- (LB) and upper-bound (UB) approach was 4.3 and 5.1 µg·kg−1, respectively, with less than 1% of the results exceeding the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) threshold of 30 µg·kg−1and the highest values being reported for sea urchins (107.6 and 108.0 µg·kg−1). Toxins accumulated almost exclusively in the digestive tube of the tested species, with the exception of octopus, in which there were detectable toxin amounts in the remaining tissues (RT). The mean toxin concentration in the RT of the sampled organisms (fishes, echinoderms and cephalopods) was 0.7 and 1.7 µg·kg−1 (LB and UB, respectively), with a maximum value of 19.9 µg·kg−1 for octopus RT. The herbivorous and omnivorous organisms were the most contaminated species, indicating that diet influences the contamination process, and the LC-MS/MS revealed that ovatoxin-a was the only toxin detected.
