Mass Spectral Investigation on Toxins. I. Isolation, Purification, and Characterization of Hepatotoxins from Freshwater Blue-Green Algae (Cyanobacteria) by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and Fast Atom Bombardment Mass Spectrometric Techniques.

Abstract

Toxic peptides of freshwater cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) from two European Microcystis aeruginosa and one Canadian Anabaena flos-aquae were purified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and examined by amino acid analysis and mass spectrometry. A toxic fraction from a butanol/methanol extract of toxic lyophilized cells was separated by G-25 gel filtration and purified by HPLC using a C-18 semiprep Column. A toxic peak with the same elution time was detected for each of the three toxic cyanobacteria. Signs of poisoning for the desalted, purified toxins (LD50, intraperitoneal mouse, 50 micrograms/kg) were identical with those previously reported for hepatotoxic peptides from Microcystis aeruginosa. On hydrolysis and amino acid analysis, all three toxins showed a similar profile consisting of equimolar amounts of glutamic acid, alanine, arginine, and leucine, Beta-methylaspartic acid was identified in all of the toxic peptides. The Fast Atom Bombardment (FAB) mass spectra of the toxins indicated the molecular weight to be 994 for all peptides. The absence of sequence ions in their corresponding FAB spectra indicated that the peptides were cyclic.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1986
Accession Number
ADA175457

Entities

People

  • Emory W. Sarver
  • Thaiya Krishnamurthy
  • Wayne W. Carmichael

Organizations

  • Edgewood Chemical Biological Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Alcohols
  • Amino Acids
  • Chromatographs
  • Chromatography
  • Classification
  • Cyanobacteria
  • Glutamic Acid
  • Liquid Chromatography
  • Mass Spectra
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Mass Spectroscopy
  • Materials
  • Methanols
  • Molecular Weight
  • Spectra
  • Spectrometry
  • Spectroscopy

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Aquatic Ecology
  • Immunology