Issue Aquat. Living Resour. Volume 15, Number 1, March 2002 Page(s) 53 - 60 DOI 10.1016/S0990-7440(01)01139-1

Aquat. Living Resour. 15 (2002) 53-60
DOI: 10.1016/S0990-7440(01)01139-1

Depuration of mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) contaminated with domoic acid

Juan Blanco¹, Magdalena Bermúdez de la Puente², Fabiola Arévalo², Covadonga Salgado² and Ángeles Moroño<sup>2

1</sup>  Centro de Investigacións Mariñas, Pedras de Corón s/n, Aptdo. 13, 36620 Vilanova de Arousa, Spain
²  Centro de Control da Calidade do Medio Mariño, Peirao de Vilaxoán, 36600 Vilagarcía de Arousa, Spain

(Received 7 August 2000; accepted 12 September 2001. Available online 16 March 2002.)

Abstract
Domoic acid is a neurotoxin responsible for the Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP). With the aim of determining its depuration kinetics in raft mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis and the effects of body weight, salinity and temperature on it, an experiment involving these factors was carried out. Mussels which had incorporated this toxin to a concentration of 153 μg·g^-1 of soft tissue during a bloom of the pennate diatom Pseudo nitzschia australis, were collected from the Galician Rías and placed at temperatures of 18 and 22 ºC and salinities of 12.5 and 31. Mussel samples were taken at the start of the experiment and daily during the four subsequent days and the domoic acid contents of the soft tissues were analysed. The simple one-compartment kinetics, that is a kinetics in which all toxin depurates at the same rate, was fitted to the data, with good quantitative results. Notwithstanding, the deviations of the model from the actual data were dependent on time, suggesting that such a simple model is not enough to correctly describe the data, and that a more complex kinetics may be more adequate. A two-compartment kinetic model, in which two pools of toxins exist (compartments), each one depurating at different rate, described qualitatively better the depuration but its quantitative contribution to the fit was not statistically significant. The parameters of the model, obtained by least squares fitting, suggest the possibility of a small second compartment of very small or null depuration rate, as detected in other species. This kind of model would explain the reduced quantitative contribution of the second (slowly depurating) compartment.Low salinity was shown to reduce the depuration rate. The two other factors checked, temperature and body weight, nor any interaction had significant effect on depuration rate.

Key words: Phycotoxins / ASP / Amnesic shellfish poisoning / Depuration kinetics / Models / Temperature / Salinity / Mytilus galloprovincialis


© Elsevier 2002

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