Natural toxins, analysis

Williams PRD and Hammitt JK (2001) Perceived risks of conventional and organic produce pesticides, pathogens and natural toxins . Risk Analysis, 21, 319-330. 

An excellent review of methods in mycotoxin analysis was published by the FAO (29), and yearly updates on analytical methods are provided by the General Referee Report, Committee on Natural Toxins, published in the Journal of AO AC International. 

Sherlock, I.R., James, K.J., Caudwell, EB., and MacKintosh, C. 1997. The first identification of microcystins in Irish lakes aided by a new derivatisation procedure for electrospray mass spectrometric analysis. Natural Toxins 5 247-254. 

Any other factors that may define the analytical requirements should also be considered. For example, when dealing with veterinary drug residue analysis, while the target tissue for domestically produced animals may be liver or kidney, these organ tissues are less commonly available as imported products. The majority of imported meat products are muscle tissue. Therefore, although the method has been validated for analysis of kidney for domestic samples, it is not fit for purpose for use on most import samples until it has also been validated for muscle tissue and possibly even some processed meat products. A method validated for the analysis of an aquaculture drug or natural toxin in oysters from domestic production may also, for example, require validation for shrimp or tilapia for application to imports. In addition, the requirement may include development of a... 

An untypical necine can be found in the otonecine PAs This necine occurs not in form of a bicycle but as a l-methylazocan-5-one. On account of the results by X-ray analysis, it could be found that there exists a transannular binding between carbonyl and the nitrogen leading to the same behavior as the typical bicycle PAs. All PAs showing a double bond in position 1,2 act as natural toxins. 

Molyneux, R. J., and James, L. F. 1991a. Swainsonine, the Locoweed Toxin Analysis and Distribution. In Toxicology of Plant and Fungal Compounds-Handbook of Natural Toxins, Vol.6, Keeler, R. R, and Tu, A. T., eds. New York, Marcel Dekker. pp. 191-214. 

Be, X., Fu, F. -N. and Singh, B. R., 1994, Hydrophobic moment analysis of amino acid sequences of botulinum and tetanus neurotoxins to identify functional domains. J. Natural Toxins 3 49-68. 

The detection and analysis, including quantification, of cyanobacterial toxins are essential for monitoring their occurrence in natural and controlled waters used for agricultural purposes, potable supplies, recreation and aquaculture. Risk assessment of the cyanobacterial toxins for the protection of human and animal health, and fundamental research, are also dependent on efficient methods of detection and analysis. In this article we discuss the methods developed and used to detect and analyse cyanobacterial toxins in bloom and scum material, water and animal/clinical specimens, and the progress being made in the risk assessment of the toxins. 

With the development of HPLC, a new dimension was added to the tools available for the study of natural products. HPLC is ideally suited to the analysis of non-volatile, sensitive compounds frequently found in biological systems. Unlike other available separation techniques such as TLC and electrophoresis, HPLC methods provide both qualitative and quantitative data and can be easily automated. The basis for the HPLC method for the PSP toxins was established in the late 1970 s when Buckley et al. (2) reported the post-column derivatization of the PSP toxins based on an alkaline oxidation reaction described by Bates and Rapoport (3). Based on this foundation, a series of investigations were conducted to develop a rapid, efficient HPLC method to detect the multiple toxins involved in PSP. Originally, a variety of silica-based, bonded stationary phases were utilized with a low-pressure post-column reaction system (PCRS) (4,5), Later, with improvements in toxin separation mechanisms and the utilization of a high efficiency PCRS, a... 

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