Pharmacological Activities of Purified Toxins from Gymnodinium Breve and Prymnesium Parvum

Abstract

Biologically active natural products may be considered to be fully characterized only when the relationship between their chemical identity and a specific activity is clearly established. This goal has been achieved with but a few of the toxins obtained from marine organisms, the most notable being saxitoxin¹ and tetrodotoxin². Many of the bioactive compounds obtained from phytoplankton “blooms” in “red tides” have not been fully characterized nor has their action been defined in terms of a specific activity against a well defined physiological system. This situation arises not from the lack of experimental acuity or resourcefulness of the investigators, but largely from the erratic occurrence of the redtide outbreaks and the chemical complexity of the toxins themselves, which occur as mixtures of several natural products³. The strategy that is most often followed is to proceed with purification schemes of one kind or another while refining the bioassay, which hopefully will reveal the exact structure-function relationship of the toxin being isolated. We hope to show that this is probably the most fruitful approach, since it guides the chemist pursuing his isolation pathways while it demands of the physiologist a clearer definition of the cellular activity with which the toxin is interacting.