Sheep mortality associated with paralytic shellfish poisons from the cyanobacterium Anabaena circinalis

Taxonomy and production of paralytic shellfish toxins by the freshwater cyanobacteriumAphanizomenon gracileLMECYA40

“…However, this might have been due to the relatively low cell densities of the organisms involved in toxin production that were present in the natural water. Several authors have reported the death of wild and domestic animals following extensive neurotoxic blooms (Sawyer et al, 1968;Negri et al, 1995;Pomati et al, 2000) but the cell densities and PST concentrations found in the natural water samples were always higher than those observed in Crato reservoir. We note, however, that the toxic strain LMECYA40 could reach densities above 10 8 cells ml 71 in culture, and this species has been observed locally in some natural reservoirs to reach these densities (Pereira, unpublished).…”

“…Attention has been focused mainly on hepatotoxins as these have been shown to be potent inhibitors of protein phosphatases leading to tumour promotion (Falconer, 1991(Falconer, , 1996Nishiwaki-Matsushima et al, 1992). Many acute poisonings of domestic animals and wildlife have also been reported (Sawyer et al, 1968;Edwards et al, 1992;Negri et al, 1995;Henriksen et al, 1997;Pomati et al, 2000). Among the different types of neurotoxins found in cyanobacteria, the saxitoxins (STXs) are the most potent group.…”

Health hazards for terrestrial vertebrates from toxic cyanobacteria in surface water ecosystems

“…[119,127], and by heterotrophic bacteria [44]. Saxitoxins have been recently identified in five freshwater cyanobacterial species: Aphanizomenon flos-aquae [37,57,70,95], Anabaena circinalis [54,83], Lyngbya wollei [14,91,130] Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii [66] and Planktothrix sp. [96].…”

“…They can be divided in four groups, depending on the substitutions in the five variable positions R1 to R5 (Fig. 3E): saxitoxins (STX, dcSTX, neoSTX) [54,57,60,66,70,83,95,96], gonyautoxins (GTX 1 to 6 [54,60,66,83,95] and dcGTX 2 and 3 [54,83,91,130]), C-toxins (C 1 and 2) [37,54,82], and variants identified in American strains of Lyngbya wollei (LWTX 1 to 6) [91]. Depending on the variants, the toxicity in the mouse can differ considerably.…”

Identification of cyanobacterial toxins in Florida's freshwater systems

“…Cyanotoxins are relatively stable compounds and, depending on environmental conditions, can persist for weeks to months (Matsunaga et al 1989, Smith and Sutton 1993, Tsuji et al 1993, Harada et al 1996, Jones and Negri 1997, Chriswell et al 1999. Cyanotoxins can severely sicken and/or kill animals (review in Ressom et al 1994, Carbis et al 1997Negri et al 1995, Henriksen et al 1997 and humans (review in Ressom et al 1994, Jochimsen et al 1998, Carmichael 1999, Pouria et al 1998.…”