Shellfish pharmacology

However, PCP is the second heaviest used pesticide in the United States, although it has been mostly used for the purpose of wood preservation(1). Under such circumstances, an international symposium on "Pentachlorophenol" convened by K. Ranga Rao(University of West Florida) was held in Pensacola, Florida, June 27-29, 1977, concerning the chemistry, pharmacology, and environmental toxicology of PCP. At the symposium, I presented a paper(2) on the metabolism of PCP in fishes, mostly reviewing the works on the absorption, excretion and detoxification of PCP in fish and shellfish, which were done in our laboratory. 

Despite the uncertainties in HOP for the toxins, there is reason to suspect that their mouse intraperitoneal potencies (MIP), the ri for the standard mouse bioassay system, do not bear a uniform relationship to them. Early pharmacological work ( ) on the paralytic shellfish toxins was conducted with shellfish extracts. 

IPC is also effective for pharmacology related to brain disease. It was used to analyze picolinic acid and related compounds [90], neurotoxins associated with paralytic shellfish poisoning [91], a drug candidate for treating Alzheimer s disease [92], and nicergoline, clinically used for improving brain metabolism [93]. Quaternary ammonium anticholinergics were determined in whole blood and the matrix effect was taken into account [94]. 

Suarez-Isla, B.A. and Velez, P, Paralytic shellfish poisoning. Biological detection methods, m Seafood and Freshwater Toxins Pharmacology, Physiology and Detection (ed. Botana, L.M.). Marcel Dekker, New York, 2000, p. 187. 

Q Paralytic Shellfish Toxins— Pharmacology, and Toxicology Biological Detection Methods... 

The main symptom of DSP, after which the poisoning is named, is represented by diarrhea, often associated with other gastrointestinal distresses such as nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. Usually, these symptoms occm within 30 min to a few hours after contaminated shellfish consumption. In general, no hospitalization of the patients is necessary and, usually, there is a complete recovery within 3 days without any pharmacological treatment. In fact, no specific antidote is available for diarrheic toxins, to date. The treatment, if necessary, is only supportive to replace fluid and electrolyte losses. Although no lethality is attributed to the diarrheic episodes, they represent a worldwide problem to both public health and bivalve production and marketing. ... 

To date, fifteen PTX analogues have been identified. Their chemical structures (Figure 17.1) clearly determine their pharmacologic activity. The available information about PTX structure-activity relationship has implications not only for consumer health protection and risk assessment but also for the economy of the aquaculture sector. Actually, the dependency of PTX activity on chemical structure has evidenced the existence of two shellfish metabohc routes that transform the parental compounds found in dinoflagellates to other less toxic PTX analogues [2-4]. 

M. Kodama, Toxification of bivalves by paralytic shellfish toxins, Asia Pacific Journal cf Pharmacology 3 (1988) 99-109. 

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