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A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria

The cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) has been considered a serious health threat because of its putative role in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. First reports on BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria were alarming: nearly all cyanobacteria were assumed to contain high B...

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Autores principales: Faassen, Elisabeth J., Gillissen, Frits, Lürling, Miquel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3343013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22570736
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036667
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author Faassen, Elisabeth J.
Gillissen, Frits
Lürling, Miquel
author_facet Faassen, Elisabeth J.
Gillissen, Frits
Lürling, Miquel
author_sort Faassen, Elisabeth J.
collection PubMed
description The cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) has been considered a serious health threat because of its putative role in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. First reports on BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria were alarming: nearly all cyanobacteria were assumed to contain high BMAA concentrations, implying ubiquitous exposure. Recent studies however question this presence of high BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria. To assess the real risk of BMAA to human health, this discrepancy must be resolved. We therefore tested whether the differences found could be caused by the analytical methods used in different studies. Eight cyanobacterial samples and two control samples were analyzed by three commonly used methods: HPLC-FLD analysis and LC-MS/MS analysis of both derivatized and underivatized samples. In line with published results, HPLC-FLD detected relatively high BMAA concentrations in some cyanobacterial samples, while both LC-MS/MS methods only detected BMAA in the positive control (cycad seed sarcotesta). Because we could eliminate the use of different samples and treatments as causal factors, we demonstrate that the observed differences were caused by the analytical methods. We conclude that HPLC-FLD overestimated BMAA concentrations in some cyanobacterial samples due to its low selectivity and propose that BMAA might be present in (some) cyanobacteria, but in the low µg/g or ng/g range instead of the high µg/g range as sometimes reported before. We therefore recommend to use only selective and sensitive analytical methods like LC-MS/MS for BMAA analysis. Although possibly present in low concentrations in cyanobacteria, BMAA can still form a health risk. Recent evidence on BMAA accumulation in aquatic food chains suggests human exposure through consumption of fish and shellfish which expectedly exceeds exposure through cyanobacteria.
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spelling pubmed-33430132012-05-08 A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria Faassen, Elisabeth J. Gillissen, Frits Lürling, Miquel PLoS One Research Article The cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) has been considered a serious health threat because of its putative role in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. First reports on BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria were alarming: nearly all cyanobacteria were assumed to contain high BMAA concentrations, implying ubiquitous exposure. Recent studies however question this presence of high BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria. To assess the real risk of BMAA to human health, this discrepancy must be resolved. We therefore tested whether the differences found could be caused by the analytical methods used in different studies. Eight cyanobacterial samples and two control samples were analyzed by three commonly used methods: HPLC-FLD analysis and LC-MS/MS analysis of both derivatized and underivatized samples. In line with published results, HPLC-FLD detected relatively high BMAA concentrations in some cyanobacterial samples, while both LC-MS/MS methods only detected BMAA in the positive control (cycad seed sarcotesta). Because we could eliminate the use of different samples and treatments as causal factors, we demonstrate that the observed differences were caused by the analytical methods. We conclude that HPLC-FLD overestimated BMAA concentrations in some cyanobacterial samples due to its low selectivity and propose that BMAA might be present in (some) cyanobacteria, but in the low µg/g or ng/g range instead of the high µg/g range as sometimes reported before. We therefore recommend to use only selective and sensitive analytical methods like LC-MS/MS for BMAA analysis. Although possibly present in low concentrations in cyanobacteria, BMAA can still form a health risk. Recent evidence on BMAA accumulation in aquatic food chains suggests human exposure through consumption of fish and shellfish which expectedly exceeds exposure through cyanobacteria. Public Library of Science 2012-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3343013/ /pubmed/22570736 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036667 Text en Faassen et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Faassen, Elisabeth J.
Gillissen, Frits
Lürling, Miquel
A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title_full A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title_fullStr A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title_full_unstemmed A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title_short A Comparative Study on Three Analytical Methods for the Determination of the Neurotoxin BMAA in Cyanobacteria
title_sort comparative study on three analytical methods for the determination of the neurotoxin bmaa in cyanobacteria
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3343013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22570736
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036667
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