Ciguatera toxins in wild coral reef fish along the southern coast of China
Ni Wu A , Qingliu Huan A , Kemei Du A , Rong Hu A and Tian-jiu Jiang A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Research Center for Harmful Algae and Marine Biology, Key Laboratory of Eutrophication and Red Tide Prevention of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
B Corresponding author. Email: tjiangtj@163.com
Marine and Freshwater Research 66(12) 1168-1175 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF14215
Submitted: 23 July 2014 Accepted: 22 December 2014 Published: 12 May 2015
Abstract
Ciguatera toxins (CTXs) in wild coral reef fish collected from the southern coast of China were analysed. Cigua-Check kits were used for primary screening. Mouse bioassay was used to quantify toxins of the samples identified as positive by the Cigua-Check kit. High-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS) was used to further analyse P-CTX-1 of ciguatera toxins in the samples identified as positive by the mouse bioassay. The mouse bioassay showed that ciguatoxic fish existed in all six sampling sites, and 47.8% of the samples were confirmed to be contaminated with CTXs. The implicated species largely belonged to Chaetodontidae, Scaridae, Holocentridae, Lutjanidae and Serranidae. The toxicities varied from 0 to 169 ng P-CTX-1 kg–1 fish flesh according to mouse bioassay. There was no significant correlation between fish toxicity and fish weight, length and feeding habits. The accuracy rate of the Cigua-Check kit in judging toxicity or non-toxicity was up to 95.7% according to the mouse bioassay. However, the Cigua-Check kit and mouse bioassay differed significantly with respect to measures of toxicity. According to HPLC–MS/MS, no P-CTX-1 was identified in any of the samples that the mouse bioassay identified as positive.
Additional keywords: Cigua-Check, HPLC–MS/MS, mouse bioassay.
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