Seafood toxins: Classes, sources, and toxicology

Abstract

Once believed to affect only scattered areas of the world, nowadays, harmful algal blooms (HAB) plague virtually any coastal area of the planet. Usually caused by a pool of microalgae, HAB-related outbreaks not only harm human health but wreak havoc on maritime economy. Over the past decades, following the steadily increase of human poisonings, an ever-growing number of countries have been forced to set appropriate measures in order to cope with the sanitary and economic predicaments brought about by HABs. Out of the thousand microalgae reported this far, only a limited number of them have been proven to produce marine biotoxins. Such molecules, once assumed by seafood, easily find their way up to the table of unaware consumers. Moreover, particular phytoplankton blooms can directly affect humans through contaminated marine aerosol. Depending on the symptoms shown by patients, the major human illnesses caused by toxin-contaminated seafood are commonly referred to as paralytic, neurotoxic, amnesic, diarrhetic shellfish, and ciguatera fish poisonings (PSP, NSP, ASP, DSP, and CFP, respectively). In this chapter, a wide-ranging and multifaceted overview of the main marine biotoxin classes is presented.