Accumulation and depuration rates of paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins in the shore crab Telmessus acutidens by feeding toxic mussels under laboratory controlled conditions
Introduction
Carnivorous or scavenging shellfishes have recently been considered as possible vector species of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins (Shumway, 1995, Compagnon et al., 1998). Along the Atlantic coast of Canada, the American lobster, Homarus americanus, has been found to be contaminated by PSP toxins (Watson-Wright et al., 1991, Desbiens and Cembella, 1995), and thus periodically included in the monitoring program of the toxin (Cembella and Todd, 1993). We also reported that two species of shore crabs, Telmessus acutidens and Charybdis japonica, which are commercially harvested species in Japan, accumulate the PSP toxins mainly in the hepatopancreas (Oikawa et al., 2002, Oikawa et al., 2004). The level of the toxicity in T. acutidens was as high as that reported in the American lobster (Desbiens and Cembella, 1995, Oikawa et al., 2002). In April 2004, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan set the regulation limit for carnivorous and scavenging species, taking into consideration of our monitoring results in 2003 (unpublished data). Consequently, dealing in crabs over 4 MU/g in hepatopancreas was prohibited by the Food Sanitation Law in Japan. Actually, the harvesting of the crab T. acutidens was prohibited in two prefectures in Japan from April to June, 2004. In our previous study, the crabs became highly toxic when the prey bivalves showed a high toxicity, therefore the bivalves could be regarded as one of the potential origins of the toxins for the crab (Oikawa et al., 2002). However, as the toxicities of the crabs were variable among the specimens even collected in the same place on the same date (Oikawa et al., 2004), it seemed difficult to investigate the accumulation kinetics of the toxins by field studies. In addition, as T. acutidens moves away from the shore at the end of the blooming season of toxic dinoflagellates, we could not follow the toxin discharge from the crab until the toxicity in the crab reached safe levels. We also compared the toxin profiles between the mussel and crab by high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD), and this suggested that reductive conversions of the toxin occurred in the crab. However, reductive conversions could not be directly demonstrated, because it was impossible to determine what amounts and what kinds of toxic prey the crab actually ingested in the natural environment.
In this study the crab T. acutidens was fed on toxic mussels to investigate the toxin accumulation in laboratory aquaria, and the toxicity and toxin profiles of the crabs and mussels were analyzed by mouse bioassay and by HPLC-FLD. In addition, crabs which had accumulated toxins by being fed toxic mussels were maintained with and without feeding of non-toxic mussels in order to investigate the depuration of the toxin in T. acutidens.
Section snippets
Crab and mussel samples
Live specimens of the crab T. acutidens were purchased from a wholesale market in Miyagi Prefecture, in the north-eastern part of Honshu, Japan. The crab samples were transferred to the National Research Institute of Fisheries Science in Kanagawa Prefecture, and were maintained for over a month at 10 °C, almost the same temperature as that for the crab found to be toxic in our previous paper (Oikawa et al., 2004), and the crabs were fed on mussels, mackerel and squid twice a week. Prior to
Results
Relations between the total toxicity in the crab hepatopancreas and the amount of the toxic mussels ingested by the crab are shown in Fig. 1. The total toxicity in the crab hepatopancreas increased linearly along with the amount of mussels ingested, and the relation was expressed as y=1.33x−32.7 with a high correlation (R2=0.86). The toxicity per 1 g of hepatopancreas also increased with feeding, and the toxicity of the crab hepatopancreas after feeding for 20 consecutive days reached to 12.8±3.8
Discussion
The total toxicity in the crab hepatopancreas increased linearly with the amount of toxic mussels the crabs ingested. The toxicity of the crab per one gram of hepatopancreas became 3.2 times higher than that of the toxic mussels by 20 days feeding of toxic mussels. These results directly demonstrated that T. acutidens is able to accumulate PSP toxins from toxic mussels. In addition, we observed T. acutidens to prey on mussels during the blooming season of toxic dinoflagellates (Oikawa et al.,
Acknowledgements
We express our gratitude to Dr Oshima of Tohoku University, Dr Noguchi of Japan Frozen Foods Inspection Corporation, and the Fisheries Agency of Japan for providing the PSP toxin standards. We also thank Mr Fujita and Mr Saito of Fukushima Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station for collecting the toxic mussels, and Ms Hatano of National Research Institute of Fisheries Science for the sample preparation.
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