ANOCIBIOTOX – Non targeted analysis of marine biotoxins in fishery products from mainland France and French overseas territories

Considering the phenomenon of geographical expansion of marine biotoxins, the emergence of new toxins and the associated risk for human health, it is necessary to have versatile and efficient analytical methods able to detect... [ view full abstract ]

Considering the phenomenon of geographical expansion of marine biotoxins, the emergence of new toxins and the associated risk for human health, it is necessary to have versatile and efficient analytical methods able to detect a range, as wide as possible of known or emerging toxins. Technological advances make it possible to have more sensitive and faster equipment, with a better analytical specificity. This is the case of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Due to the large number of marine biotoxins and their extensive range of polarity, current detection methods mainly focus on a toxin family or a group of toxins of the same polarity. In addition, these methods targeting known toxins are not able to detect emerging compounds.

The ANOCIBIOTOX project aims to meet the expectations in terms of investigation of known or emerging phenomena, by implementing a non-targeted analytical approach to detect marine biotoxins. The rationale behind this approach also lays in its potential to enable retrospective analysis of acquisition data to detect contamination trends. The bigdata generated in high resolution mass spectrometry is analysed/treated using chemometric tools to compare the toxin profile of an unknown sample with that of a reference (sample, database) and thereby identify the compounds responsible for the difference in terms of toxin profile.