Japanese scallops, Patinopecten yessoensis, were fed with the toxic dinoflagellate Dinophysis fortii to elucidate the relative magnitude of assimilation, accumulation, and metabolism of diarrhetic shellfish toxins (DSTs) and pectenotoxins (PTXs). Three individual scallops were separately exposed to cultured D. fortii for four days. The average cell number of D. fortii assimilated by each individual scallop was 7.7 × 10⁵. Dinophysistoxin-1 (DTX1), pectenotoxin-2 (PTX2) and their metabolites were analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) and the toxin content in individual tissues (digestive gland, adductor muscle, gill, gonad, mantle, and the others), feces and the seawater medium were quantified. Toxins were almost exclusively accumulated in the digestive gland with only low levels being detected in the gills, mantles, gonads, and adductor muscles. DTX1 and PTX2 were the dominant toxins in the D. fortii cells fed to the scallops, whereas the dominant toxins detected in the digestive gland of scallops were PTX6 and esterified acyl-O-DTX1 (DTX3). In other tissues PTX2 was the dominant toxin observed. The ratio of accumulated to assimilated toxins was 21%-39% and 7%-23% for PTXs and DTXs respectively. Approximately 54%-75% of PTX2 and 52%-70% of DTX1 assimilated by the scallops was directly excreted into the seawater mainly without metabolic transformation.
Keywords: Dinophysis fortii; Japanese scallops; LC/MS/MS; accumulation; diarrhetic shellfish toxins; dinophysistoxin; feeding experiment; pectenotoxin.