Citation

Vilariño N, Louzao MC, Abal P, Cagide E, Carrera C, Vieytes MR, Botana LM. Toxins (Basel) 2018; 10(8): e10080324.

Affiliation

Departamento de Farmacología, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 27002 Lugo, Spain. luis.botana@usc.es.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/toxins10080324

PMID

30096904

Abstract

Marine biotoxins are produced by aquatic microorganisms and accumulate in shellfish or finfish following the food web. These toxins usually reach human consumers by ingestion of contaminated seafood, although other exposure routes like inhalation or contact have also been reported and may cause serious illness. This review shows the current data regarding the symptoms of acute intoxication for several toxin classes, including paralytic toxins, amnesic toxins, ciguatoxins, brevetoxins, tetrodotoxins, diarrheic toxins, azaspiracids and palytoxins. The information available about chronic toxicity and relative potency of different analogs within a toxin class are also reported. The gaps of toxicological knowledge that should be studied to improve human health protection are discussed. In general, gathering of epidemiological data in humans, chronic toxicity studies and exploring relative potency by oral administration are critical to minimize human health risks related to these toxin classes in the near future.

Language: en

Keywords

acute toxicity; biotoxin; chronic toxicity; intoxication; toxicity equivalency factor