Abstract
The dinoflagellates are an important part of the marine plankton, second only the the diatoms in abundance and as primary producers of organic matter in most areas of the world’s oceans. Occasionally, for reasons not fully understood, a particular dinoflagellate bloom may reach concentrations as high as 50,000 cells per ml. Blooms (red tides) of toxic dinoflagellates, particularly Gonyaulax tamarensis in the north Atlantic and G. catanella in the north Pacific, have been causing serious economic and public health proglems. These problems arise when filter feeders (such as shellfish), which concentrate the poison, are consumed by organisms higher in the food chain. In man, consumption of contaminated bivalves produces paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), a severe and often fatal form of food poisoning. These dinoflagellate toxins are also of great pharmacological and biomedical interest because of their particular mode of action, namely, blockage of the transmission of nerve impulses by selectively blocking the passive influx of Na+ through excitable membranes1,2.
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© 1977 Plenum Press, New York
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Shimizu, Y. et al. (1977). Chemistry and Distribution of Deleterious Dinoflagellate Toxins. In: Faulkner, D.J., Fenical, W.H. (eds) Marine Natural Products Chemistry. Nato Conference Series, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0802-7_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0802-7_21
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