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Abstract
In 1998, during the surveillance of the toxicity of various marine fouling organisms
in Hiroshima Bay, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, specimens of the ribbon worm, "himomushi"
Cephalothrix sp. (Nemertean) adherent to the shells of cultured oysters hanging onto
floating culture rafts were found to contain toxins which showed strong paralytic
action in mice throughout the survey period, February to May. The maximum toxicity
(as tetrodotoxin, TTX) was 14,734 MU/g whole body. Attempts were made to identify
the paralytic toxins in this worm. The "himomushi" toxin (HMT) was extracted from
the worm with 80% methanol acidified with acetic acid and the extract defatted with
dichloromethane. The aqueous layer was chromatographed on activated charcoal and the
unbound and bound toxic fractions were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography
and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. It was rather unexpectedly revealed from
these results that HMT was comprised of TTX, 4-epiTTX, anhydroTTX and three unidentified
toxins. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the occurrence of toxic organisms,
containing a high concentration of TTX, adherent to cultured bivalves such as oysters.