By: Kevin McKeown
What would a Pickering Labs newsletter be without an article about our favorite new Post-Column application: Paralytic Shellfish Testing!
Coming off of our Summer exhibition season, there was a lot of talk about Shellfish at AOAC International. We had conversations with customers from NOAA, multiple State Departments of Health and even a few third-party testing labs; all involving the rapidly accelerating need for more robust testing of Shellfish. As the oceans/lakes/rivers get warmer, the likelihood of Algae Blooms increases dramatically. This makes the frequent testing of potentially tainted Shellfish even more important to public health.
If you haven’t visited in a while, we’ve updated our landing page for PSP here: https://www.pickeringlabs.com/products/paralytic-shellfish-methods/
The page features our updated Method Abstract, which now includes methodology for the GTX-6 toxin. The GTX-6 toxin is less toxic than other STX and GTX toxins and is rarely detected in contaminated shellfish. However, some regulatory agencies require its identification and quantification. Under the standard AOAC 2011.02 conditions, GTX-6 coelutes with GTX-4. By
using a modified first eluent (2.75 mM heptane sulfonate, 1.4 mM phosphoric acid, adjusted to pH 5.7 with ammonium hydroxide) under STX/GTX analytical conditions, GTX-6 can be effectively separated and accurately quantified when reporting is required.
Myself and Dr. Maria Ofitserova will be attending/exhibiting at the HABS 2026 conference in late October in Iowa. If you have any interest in this testing (or are already attending!) we encourage you to stop by the booth and have a look at our Onyx!
