Warm Seawater Microalgae: Growth and Toxic Profile of Ostreopsis Spp. from European Coasts

Botana Lm Alfonso A

doi:10.4172/2332-2632.1000104

Abstract

Palytoxin (PLTX) is a complex marine toxin synthesized by the soft coral Palythoa toxica and by species of the benthic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis spp. The toxin binds to the active Na, K-ATPase pump in the cellular membrane. This interaction changes the protein conformation and produces a non-specific cation channel. Using the Fluorescent Polarization (FP) technique to quantify the PLTX concentration, the production of PLTX-like products was measured in several cultures of Ostreopsis ovata and Ostreosis siamensis. The cultures were grown under different conditions to study the optimal parameters to grow and to produce toxins. Serious difficulties were found to quantify the number of cells at the end of the exponential phase. In order to avoid any toxin loss, the weight of the pellet obtained after careful filtration was used as reliable parameter to calculate the growth of the cultures. Also, this parameter was used to refer the results of toxin concentration. In addition the toxicity of the cultures was measured by mouse bioassay. In these conditions, the optimal parameters to grow these strains are 24°C, 37‰ of salinity and 16:8 h light-dark photoperiod. Within these parameters high amounts of PLTX-like compounds with different toxin profiles were obtained.

Highlights

Palytoxin (PLTX) is a toxic compound initially isolated from marine soft corals of the genus Palythoa [1] and produced by tropical benthic dinoflagellates from Ostreopsis genus [2]
Different molecules related with the PLYX structure (Figure 1) have been described: palytoxin-b, homopalytoxin, bishomopalytoxin, neopalytoxin, deoxypalytoxin, 42-hydroxypalytoxin, ostreocin-d, ovatoxin-a, -b,c,d, -e and -f and mascarenotoxin-a, -b and -c
Adenosine 5-triphosphatase (Na,K-ATPase) from porcine cerebral cortex and ouabain was obtained from Sigma-Aldrich Química, S.A. (Spain); Fluoro-Spin 498 Protein Labeling Kit was obtained from EMP Biotech (Germany)

Summary

Introduction

Palytoxin (PLTX) is a toxic compound initially isolated from marine soft corals of the genus Palythoa [1] and produced by tropical benthic dinoflagellates from Ostreopsis genus [2]. This toxin has been involved in human poisoning after the ingestion of food contaminated, and skin irritations and respiratory effects by contact with contaminated spray seawater have been reported [3]. Only the chemical structures of PLTX, ostreocin-d, ovatoxin-a and 42-hydroxypalytoxin have been characterized [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. PLTX is a large molecule, with a molecular weight of 2659-2680 daltons depending on the origin [12,13]

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