Further improvements in the application of high-performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography to the analysis of algal toxins in the aquatic environment.
The presence of algal toxins in the aquatic environment represents an important socioeconomic concern in many places worldwide, due to the toxicity that these compounds can induce in seafood or freshwater organisms at very low levels. Several analytical alternatives have been proposed over the last years for the control of these contaminants, which acute or chronic toxicity requires low detection levels and demands for the search of sensitive methods for their detection and determination. HPLC has been widely used for this purpose, although several alternatives such as CE or capillary electrochromatography (CEC) are being lately developed with this aim. In this work we report on the application of improved HPLC, as well as CE and CEC, for the analysis of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning toxins, amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) toxins and microcystins (MCs) present in different matrices such as water, shellfish or algae. Improvements in sample preparation for increasing sensitivity and selectivity are also shown. While UV and fluorimetric detection are the detection methods generally used, mass spectrometric detection was also applied for ASP toxins and MCs, especially for confirmatory purposes. From the results obtained it can be concluded that both HPLC and CE offer a good potential for a sensitive and selective determination of these algal toxins in such complex matrices. The results obtained for CEC allow also to conclude that this technique can result in a promising technique for such application.