Subcellular distribution of tetrodotoxin in puffer fish liver

摘要

The liver homogenate of puffer fish was fractionated into blood cell, nuclear, mitochondrial, microsomal and cytosol fractions by the differential centrifugation method. All the five fractions were toxic to mice, although the toxin amount was significantly high in the cytosol fraction. Analyses by HPLC and LC-FABMS demonstrated that tetrodotoxin is the major toxic principle in each fraction. These results reveal that tetrodotoxin is widely distributed in organelles in liver cells, though predominantly in the cytosol fraction.