Background & Discovery
A food poisoning outbreak of 26 cases in the Ganyudo area of Suruga Bay, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan in September 1965 was traced to ingestion of the toxin surugatoxin (SGTX), named for Suruga Bay. SGTX is contained in the mid-gut digestive gland of the Japanese ivory mollusk, Babylonia japonica, which is used as an ingredient in sushi and sashimi. The food-poisoning patients reported a variety of symptoms, including visual disorders, speech disorders, lazy eye amblyopia, pupil dilation mydriasis, abdominal distention, dry mouth, numbness of lips, constipation, and vomiting.
The toxicity shellfish from the Suruga Bay area varied with time – the toxicity was only present during July through September, when temperatures sometimes reached 25°C and it rapidly declined after 1978, making the availability of surugatoxin and the related substances neosurugatoxin and prosurugatoxin unavailable for research. Kosuge and colleagues found that these toxins are actually the metabolized products of a marine bacterium that belongs to the Coryneform group. Toxicity is a result of bioaccumulation.
Read more about this topic: Surugatoxin
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