Surugatoxin

Abstract: During the surveillance on paralytic shellfish toxins in Fukui Prefecture, the Japanese ivory shell Babylonia japonica collected at Sakajiri of Wakasa Bay was found to contain toxin (s) of strong paralytic action. The symptoms in mice were distinctly different from those reported for surugatoxin, which had been isolated from the ivory shells of Suruga Bay as the toxic principle responsible for the food poisonings which were prevalent in the 1960s in the region. The newly found toxin (s) was extracted from the viscera (162g) with 75% ethanol acidified with acetic acid; the extracts were purified successively on columns of activated charcoal. Bio-Gel P-2, and Bio-Rex70. Two toxins (BJT-1 and BJT-2) having specific activities of 3300 MU/mg and 590 MU/mg, respectively, were obtained. The yields were 0.7mg for BJT-1 and 1.0mg for BJT-2. Comparison of BJT-1 with tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin by tlc, color reactions, dose-survival time curve, and 1HNMR spectroscopy led to the conclusion that BJT-1 is tetrodotoxin. The reaction in mice and to color reagents suggested that BJT-2 also is a metabolite of tetrodotoxin but it differed from tetrodotoxin in its tlc properties and in its positive reaction to Sakaguchi and ninhydrin reagents.

Abstract: A Coryneform bacterium, isolated from the digestive gland of the Japanese ivory shell, Babylonia japonica, was shown to produce neosurugatoxin and prosurugatoxin, the causative toxins of a food poisoning outbreak in 1965 following ingestion of the shellfish. This is the first evidence that marine toxins may be produced by bacteria.

Abstract: Isolation of neosurugatoxin, which is the causative agent of intoxication resulting from the ingestion of the toxic Japanese ivory shell, was accomplished by six steps of chromatography, to give 4 mg of the principle from 20 kg of the shellfish.

Abstract: In September 1965, food poisoning occurred from ingestion of a carnivorous gastropod, the Japanese ivory mollusk(Babylonia japonica), captured in the Shizuoka district of Suruga Bay. The patients complained of visual disorders, mydriasis, abdominal distention, dryness of mouth, constipation, and vomiting. The poisoning was apparently due to toxins, which were later demostrated in the mid-gut gland of the mollusk found in a very limited area of the bay (Kimura and Sugiyama, 1967; Hashimoto, 1967).