Antillatoxin is a potent ichthyotoxin and cytotoxin previously discovered from the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula. Ensuing studies of its mechanism of action showed it to activate the mammalian voltage-gated sodium channel at a pharmacological site that is distinct from any previously described. The structure of antillatoxin, initially formulated from spectroscopic information, was subsequently corrected at one stereocenter (C-4) as a result of synthesis of four different antillatoxin stereoisomers (all possible C-4 and C-5 diastereomers). In the current study these four stereoisomers, (4R,5R)-, (4S,5R)-, (4S,5S)-, and (4R,5S)-antillatoxin, were characterized in five different biological assay systems: ichthyotoxicity to goldfish, microphysiometry using cerebellar granule cells (CGCs), lactose dehydrogenase efflux from CGCs, monitoring of intracellular Ca(2+) concentrations in CGCs, and cytotoxicity to Neuro 2a cells. Across these various biological measures there was great consistency in that the natural antillatoxin (the 4R,5R-isomer) was greater than 25-fold more potent than any of the other stereoisomers. Detailed NMR studies provided a number of torsion and distance constraints that were modeled using the MM2 force field to yield predicted solution structures of the four antillatoxin stereoisomers. The macrocycle and side chain of natural (4R,5R)-antillatoxin present an overall "L-shaped" topology with an accumulation of polar substituents on the external surface of the macrocycle and a hydrogen bond between N(H)-7' and the C(O)-1 carbonyl. The decreased potency of the three non-naturally occurring antillatoxin stereoisomers is certainly a result of their dramatically altered overall molecular topologies.