Outstanding Marine Biotoxins: STX, TTX, and CTX

Countless marine species, including invertebrates, are able to produce, accumulate and use a variety of toxins for predation and defense. Many of those marine toxins arise from toxic microscopic algae that are accumulated through the marine food-chain and can contaminate seafood to cause food poisoning, including various neurological and gastrointestinal illnesses in humans. The most important toxic syndromes associated with marine toxin contamination are paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP), amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP), neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP), ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP), and the well-known pufferfish poisoning (PFP), with each related to marine toxins with specific chemical structures and biological properties. In this chapter, attention is focused on PSP, PFP, and CFP that are produced by the saxitoxins, tetrodotoxins and ciguatoxins, respectively.