Ecology & Safety, Volume 12, 2018

Abstract: Shellfish poisoning is caused by the consumption of molluscan shellfish meat contaminated with marine biotoxins produced by diatoms or dinoflagellate. Under European legislation, domoic acid (DA), the main constituent of amnesic shellfish poisoning, is monitored to protect the shellfish consumer. The aim of this study is to compare most often used analytical methods for domoic acid determination. In this regard extraction procedures, chromatographic conditions and quantitation results are commented. Phycotoxin profiling of mussels and plankton from Bulgarian coast is planned. This detailed review is focused on DA detection methods as it is the most common detected toxin in investigated area up to now. DA is analyzed using either the HPLC-UV method of Quilliam et al. (1995) or LC with mass spectrometric (MS) detection. Reviewing published data in recent years on both methods and quantitation results allows a comparison between them to be made. The HPLC-UV method detection limits ranged between 0.1 and 1 μg of DA for gram of tissue, depending on the sensitivity of the UV detector. HPLC-UV method is recommended by the European Commission as the reference method. Main disadvantage of this method is the labor-intensive purification step which is required for decreasing the matrix effect. LC with mass spectrometric (MS) detection is extensively used worldwide for DA allowing both effective seafood control and monitoring of phytoplankton in terms of the simultaneous analysis of different groups of marine biotoxins including domoic acid. For ensuring consumer protection uptake, distribution, transformation, and elimination of ASP phenomena should be studied. This requires very sensitive and selective analytical methods for DA determination. Although it is a high cost technique LC-MS guarantees better sensitivity but also a great selectivity on the determination of DA in the mussel tissue.