Occurrence of toxic bivalves in association with the bloom of Gonyaulax sp. in owase bay.

Abstract

The bloom of a toxic dinoflagellate, tentatively identified as Gonyaulax catenella, occurred in Hikimoto-ura, Owase Bay, on January 26, 1975 for two weeks making bivalves moderately toxic although there were no cases of poisoning. The symptoms induced in mice by intraperitoneal injection of the extracts from the dinoflagellate, mussel and shortnecked clam, were very similar to those induced by saxitoxin or tetrodotoxin. The toxic principles in short-necked clams were fractionated and partially purified by using Amberlite IRC-50, activated charcoal and Sephadex G-15. Four toxic components were obtained of which two major components clearly differed from saxitoxin in chromatographic behavior.