Occurrence of Tetrodotoxin in the Japanese Ivory Shell Babylonia japonica

Abstract

Specimens of the Japanese ivory shell Babylonia japonica from Sakajiri Bay, Fukui Prefecture, were all found to be toxic throughout the survey period, Aug. to Nov. 1980; the maximum toxicity (as tetrodotoxin) was 53 MU/g digestive gland. The responsible toxin was isolated from the digestive gland by a method which essentially consisted of the adsorption onto activated charcoal, chromatography on Amberlite IRC-50 and CM-Sephadex C-25, and finally crystallization from an acidified methanolic solution. The toxin and its derivatives were indistinguishable from those of tetrodotoxin (TTX) in thin-layer chromatography using 3 solvent systems. The toxin showed the same mobility as that of TTX in cellulose acetate membrane electrophoresis. The C9-base-trimethylsilyl derivative from the toxin gave the same mass spectrum as that of the corresponding TTX derivative. The dose-death time curves of this toxin and TTX coincided well with each other. It was concluded from those results that the Japanese ivory shell toxin isolated was indeed TTX. © 1981, The Japanese Society of Fisheries Science. All rights reserved.