Analysis of paralytic shellfish poison and tetrodotoxin by ion-pairing high performance liquid chromatography.

An ion-pairing high performance liquid chromatographic method using a silica ODS columnwas developed for analysis of paralytic shellfish poison (PSP) and tetrodotoxi (TTX). As mobile phase is used a mixture of 0.05M phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) containing 2 mM heptanesulfonicacid/methanol (99:1) for separation of gonyautoxins and TTXs, and the one (75:25) for separa-tion of saxitoxins. PSP and TTX members thus separated were detected as fluorogenic sub-stances, by heating with a periodate reagent (for PSP), or with 3N NaOH (for TTX).