Developmental toxicity of one marine dinoflagellate toxicant – Saxitoxin

Saxitoxin (STX), found mainly in marine dinoflagellates, is one water-soluble neurotoxin. When some fishes accumulate STX and are consumed by humans, it would cause a series of diseases, especially to children. STX was known to possess high binding affinity to the soluble sites of sodium channels and interrupts the propagation of neuronal impulses by blocking the sodium channel in excitable cells, however, it still remain unknown whether STX can contribute to other toxic effects or not. In our current study, we adopted medaka fish (Oryzias melastigma) embryos as model animals to study its developmental toxicity to children. By detecting the protein markers using 2-D electrophoresis combined with MALDI TOF/TOF MS, we found that STX could accelerate the embryonic development by enhancing the expression of stress related proteins and metabolism proteins, and by regulating phosphorylation processes.