ABSTRACT
Diarrhetic shellfi sh poisoning (DSP) is a severe gastrointestinal illness caused by consumption of shellfish contaminated with DSP toxins (Yasumoto et al. 1978). Based on their structures, DSP toxins were initially classifi ed into three groups, okadaic acid (OA)/dinophysistoxin (DTX) analogues, pectenotoxins (PTXs), and yessotoxins (YTXs) (Yasumoto et al. 1985, Yasumoto and Murata 1993). OA and its analogues, dinophysistoxin-1 and -2 (DTX-1, DTX-2), are the most important toxins due to their strong diarrhetic activity. These toxins have been shown to be potent phosphatase inhibitors (Bialojan and Takai 1988), property that can cause infl ammation of the intestinal tract and diarrhea (Terao et al. 1986). OA analogues have also been shown to have tumour-promoting activity (Fujiki et al. 1988). PTXs have been reported to be highly hepatotoxic in intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection to mice (Terao et al. 1986, Ito et al. 2008) and have also attracted attention due to their cytotoxicity against several human cancer cell lines (Jung et al. 1995). It is reported that YTXs modulate the calcium homeostasis
National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, 2-12-4 Fukuura, Kanazawa, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-8648, Japan. Email: tsuzuki@affrc.go.jp
List of abbreviations after the text.
