Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2012, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (6): 115-120.doi: 10.11978/j.issn.1009-5470.2012.06.018cstr: 32234.14.j.issn.1009-5470.2012.06.018

• Marine Biology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Detection of tetrodotoxin in aquatic products using HPLC-UV

WEI Ya, LI Lai-hao, YANG Xian-qing, CEN Jian-wei, HAO Shu-xian, XIN Shao-ping, SHI Hong,ZHOU Wan-jun   

  1. South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou 510300, China
  • Received:2011-04-13 Revised:2011-06-21 Online:2012-12-01 Published:2013-02-06

Abstract: Tetrodotoxin (TTX) accumulated in some aquatic products can be extremely dangerous to human beings. Detecting the content of TTX in aquatic products can help to avoid consuming the toxic products. Due to the complexity of sample composition, TTX detection method has not been developed. The new methods of extracting TTX in puffer fish were studied and presented here. A variety of solid phase extraction column for purification were compared, the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with a UV detector was adopted in the detection. The results showed that both the Soxhlet extraction method and ultrasound treatment method have higher extraction efficiency. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) cartridges were compared in the TTX adsorption experiments, which revealed that the strong cation exchanger (SCX), the propanesulfonic acid SPE cartridge (PRS), and the weak cation exchanger (WCX) had good capacity of retaining TTX. The combination of the octadecyl silane SPE cartridge (C18) and WCX cartridge is even better. The best result can be achieved by extracting 10 min at 35 kHz, 100% intensity, 60℃ ultrasound treatments. The recovery rate is 75%—82%, with the relative standard deviation (RSD) of less than 15%. This newly developed method is efficient and ready to be used in the laboratory.

Key words: tetrodotoxin, extraction, purification, solid-phase extraction (SPE), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

CLC Number: 

  • O657