A Plankton toxin: It's Biosynthesis Pathway

What I read

According to "The making of a plankton toxin" (2018), it revealed that phytoplankton is unicellular photosynthetic organisms commonly found in the world's oceans and plays a key role as the base of the marine food chain, some taxa- diatoms- produce toxins poisoning to marine animals and humans. Domoic acid, produced by Pseudo-nitzschia, acted as the neurotransmitter analogue can

Fig 1. algal bloom in the Pacific Ocean
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6409/1308 

interact with the human central nervous system causing nausea, diarrhoea and neurologic symptoms before coma or death. A biosynthetic pathway of domoic acid illustrated that it started with N-prenylation reaction of glutamic acids and geranyl pyrophosphates to furnish isodomoic acid, and the two oxygenase enzymes have further isomerised this acid to domoic acid. The pathway could consequently use to monitor algal bloom and screen the domoic toxin in other diatom species.      

___________________________________ 

My response 

After I have just read this article in the Science Magazine, I argued that it is an interesting issue now because some people can seriously risk for getting toxins after eating seafood when the algal bloom in the ocean. Some algae, especially diatoms and dinoflagellates, can produce toxins after they grew fastly in vast abundance in the sea. If you ever see the pink or orange zone in the ocean, you can measure that is the blooming of phytoplankton. What causes of the blooming? Surely, that algae are blooming in the area containing excessive of organic compounds and light, but lacking of oxygen. The toxin such as domoic acid could be accumulated in marine wildlife particularly in shellfish. Many people know that this toxin is a cause of amnesia because it acts as the analogue of neurotransmitters which specifically destroy the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS controls the memory system, so when humans had eaten toxin-contaminated raw seafood, they will suddenly nausea, diarrhoea, confused in neurological effects and then memory loss, coma or death. However, people do not know the biosynthetic pathway of the domoic acid, they tried to study and finally found that the acid was formed firstly by N-prenylation reaction and further isomerisation to the domoic acid using oxygenase enzymes. In my point of view, the finding of knowing the domoic acid pathway could be used to reduce the factors that enhanced toxins production.

According to the symptoms that caused by the domoic acid, it might be let numerous researchers discover new drugs which can immediately treat the neurological symptoms. I think the new drugs should have attached the CNS faster than the CNS-targeted toxins and it should be produced in the injection form. I finally suggest it's important to note that to prevent yourself from the toxin-contaminated in unknown seafood, you should cook by heating before eating. The heat can damage the almost toxins produced by diatoms or other plankton.       

___________________________________ 

My question

1. Conforming to the article, do you agree that the discovery of the domoic acid biosynthetic pathway could be use for mornitoring rate of algal bloom? 

___________________________________ 

Reference

• Pohnert, G., Poulin, R. X., Baumister, T. U. H. (2018). The making of a plankton toxin. Science, 361(6409), 1308-1309. DOI: 10.1126/science.aau9067