Study on Biological Assay for Paralytic Shellfish Poisons Clinical Signs of ICR Mice Induced by Paralytic Shellfish Poisons

In the recent past, a variety of toxins had been discovered continuously, while paralytic shellfish poisons (PSP) was the first one to be identified and the most frequently to be found as well as dangerous to human beings. In this report PSP was extracted by 0.1 N HCl from meat of purple clams, Soletellina diphos, which accumulated dinoflagellate sp. as biological concentration. The extracted samples were administered via routes of intraperitoneal injection and per os to weight 20±1g ICR strain mice, which had been aroused many clinical signs. These clinical signs include hair bristly (ruffling of fur), scratch, erecting of tail, tremor, incoordination/ataxia, circling of movement, opisthotonus and convulsion, finally death. Hindleg of guinea pigs, rats, and mice were subcutaneously innoculated with the extracted sample which caused local paresis (slang leg) of the lab-animals respectively. All examination procedures were carried out only two hours or more. The results showed that the specific clinical signs of the mice induced by PSP such as erecting of tail, circling of movement, opisthotonus and convulsion, seems to be a rapid method for screening PSP in shellfish. The doseresponse curve of PSP in mice was also discussed in this paper.