Recent Advances in Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry and Their Application to Marine Toxins

ingly undesirable, especially when alternative techniques based upon physicochemical substance properties are available. Toxins generally are analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques with various unspecific detectors. Therefore, subsequent confirmation is needed to ensure that these methods do not yield any false responses. While enzyme immunoassay screens are available for some toxins, to date only mass spectrometry (MS) analysis provides unequivocal proof of presence in a sample, assuming diverse fragment ions can be monitored for a high degree of specificity. Depending upon the compound, structurally informative fragment ions can be generated by either classical electron ionization or, for soft ionization techniques, by tandem MS (MSMS). Because electron ionization typically cannot be implemented for the thermally labile and highly polar toxins, soft ionization techniques such as electrospray ionization (ESI) or atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization (APCI) usually are employed. Of course, subsequent MS-MS analysis then is needed to generate fragment ions for reliable confirmation of a particular toxin’s presence or for supporting the elucidation of unknown structures. Instruments most widely applied for MS-MS are triplequadrupole and ion-trap mass spectromeThe analytical challenges in marine chemistry are numerous due to the large number of natural toxins and their metabolites, the highly toxic nature of many of these compounds, and increasingly stringent regulatory guidelines. This article gives an overview of some recently developed mass spectrometry techniques and their application to marine biotoxins. Recent Advances in Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry and Their Application to Marine Toxins