Use of Biosensors as Alternatives to Current Regulatory Methods for Marine Biotoxins

Abstract

Marine toxins are currently monitored by means of a bioassay that requires the use of many mice, which poses a technical and ethical problem in many countries. With the exception of domoic acid, there is a legal requirement for the presence of other toxins (yessotoxin, saxitoxin and analogs, okadaic acid and analogs, pectenotoxins and azaspiracids) in seafood to be controlled by bioassay, but other toxins, such as palytoxin, cyclic imines, ciguatera and tetrodotoxin are potentially present in European food and there are no legal requirements or technical approaches available to identify their presence. The need for alternative methods to the bioassay is clearly important, and biosensors have become in recent years a feasible alternative to animal sacrifice. This review will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using biosensors as alternatives to animal assays for marine toxins, with particular focus on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology.

Potential Threats Posed by New or Emerging Marine Biotoxins in UK Waters and Examination of Detection Methodology Used in Their Control: Brevetoxins

“…Dose-response curves were generated for PbTx-2 enabling the confirmation of half inhibitory concentrations in the low µM range. Whilst demonstrating potential, there are clear specificity issues given responses from potentially many different ladder-shaped polyethers, and the technique has not been tested in samples of water, culture of shellfish [ 124 ]. A major advantage with biosensor methods is the inherent sensitivity, enabling the dilution of matrix effects which can be an issue.…”

Biosensors: Ethical, Regulatory, and Legal Issues

“…Moreover, it is believed that the biosensor applications do not need to consider laboratory animals use related legal or ethical issues. Additionally, the evaluation of the toxicity of a sample with biosensor-based techniques does not require the use of a toxin standard of every compound of a toxin group; just a representative member would be sufficient (Vilariño et al 2009). Thus, because of its projected prospects, scholars have identified more than 84,000 reports on biosensor indexed in the "Web of Science" database between and 2015(Bhalla et al 2016.…”

“…The issue of care or welfare of animals used in scientific research is in consideration for more than six decades since the publication of Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals in 1963, which was revised several times subsequently. Fortunately, in relation to biosensors, it is believed that legal and ethical issues relating to the laboratory use of animals are not serious initially (Vilariño et al 2009). However, during their clinical trials on human beings, internationally recognized guidance documents should be followed.…”

OMICs Approaches in Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxins Research

“…The knowledge obtained has been useful for instance to improve monitoring and forecast toxic microalgae outbreaks and also to predict new patterns of geographical distribution of DSTs in the context of climate change. The focus has been also the chemical characterization of the several toxin analogues (OA and DTXs), including the esterified forms accumulated by shellfish [ 12 , 13 ], and the development of more sensitive and portable instruments applied in environmental monitoring (e.g., development of biosensors) [ 14 , 15 ]. The toxicology of DSTs has been also investigated.…”