Abstract
Brevetoxins are produced by the red tide dinoflagellate Karenia brevis. The toxins are lipophilic polyether toxins that elicit a myriad of effects depending on the route of exposure and the target organism. Brevetoxins are therefore broadly toxic to marine and estuarine animals. By mimicking the maternal route of exposure to the oocytes in finfish, we characterized the adverse effects of the type B brevetoxin brevetoxin-3 (PbTx-3) on embryonic fish development and survival. The Japanese rice fish, medaka (Oryzias latipes), was used as the experimental model in which individual eggs were exposed via microinjection to various known concentrations of PbTx-3 dissolved in an oil vehicle. Embryos injected with doses exceeding 1.0 ng/egg displayed tachycardia, hyperkinetic twitches in the form of sustained convulsions, spinal curvature, clumping of the erythrocytes, and decreased hatching success. Furthermore, fish dosed with toxin were often unable to hatch in the classic tail-first fashion and emerged head first, which resulted in partial hatches and death. We determined that the LD(50) (dose that is lethal to 50% of the fish) for an injected dose of PbTx-3 is 4.0 ng/egg. The results of this study complement previous studies of the developmental toxicity of the type A brevetoxin brevetoxin-1 (PbTx-1), by illustrating in vivo the differing affinities of the two congeners for cardiac sodium channels. Consequently, we observed differing cardiovascular responses in the embryos, wherein embryos exposed to PbTx-3 exhibited persistent tachycardia, whereas embryos exposed to PbTx-1 displayed bradycardia, the onset of which was delayed.