Paralytic Shellfish Toxin Profiles of the Dinoflagellate Alexandrium Species Isolated from Benthic Cysts in Jinhae Bay, Korea

On the outbreak of paralytic shellfish poisoning in April 1993 in most of shellfish harvesting areas in Jinhae Bay, Korea, to clarify the toxin production of causative organism Alexandrium species, 19 axenic clonal isolates established from the benthic resting cysts in three different stations of those culture grounds were subjected to PSP toxin analysis by HPLC. Individual toxin content per cell was highly variable among the strains isolated from a sampling area and originated from an individual cyst. Average toxin contents in those areas revealed higher values of 54-70 fmol/cell. Toxin profiles included C1/C2(epiGTX8/GTX8), GTX1/GTX4 and neoSTX as the major components, and GTX2/GTX3, GTX5, C4, dcSTX and STX as the minor or sporadic ones. neoSTX on the dominant toxins showed not only most diverse compositional changes comprising ranges but also no detection on the half of the strains examined, which were implicated in arising of heterogeneity with a genetic trait within a geographical region. When average toxin composition was compared, carbamate toxins comprised large proportions of as total toxin in St. 1, St. 2 and St. 4, respectively. These results suggested that an extensive paralytic shellfish toxification in Jinhae Bay could be largely due to the production of highly potent carbamate toxins in the causative dinoflagellate Alexandrium species.