Degradation of Okadaic Acid in Seawater by UV/TiO Photocatalysis - Proof of Concept

The consumption of contaminated shellfish with marine toxins causes adverse socioeconomical, environmental and health impacts. The marine toxin okadaic acid (OA) provokes diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) syndrome characterized by severe gastrointestinal symptoms. Therefore, there is increasing interest in removing these toxins from the marine environment to protect shellfish harvesting sites. Photocatalysis is proposed as an efficient method to detoxify the marine environment. In this study, Prorocentrum lima was used to produce high purity DSP toxins, in particular OA, for degradation studies. The profiling, characterization and quantification of DSP toxins in the culture of P. lima were achieved by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS) for accurate-mass full spectrum acquisition data. The effectiveness of UV/TiO system to degrade OA in seawater was assessed in lab-scale experiments and identification of transformation products was proposed based on the data obtained during analysis by UPLC-QTOF-MS. The detoxification potential of the UV/TiO system was investigated using the phosphatase inhibition assay. Sufficient amount of high-purity OA (25 mg, >90% purity) was produced in-house for use in photocatalysis experiments by simple reversed-phase flash chromatography. Complete degradation of OA was observed in seawater after 30 min and 7.5 min in deionized water. The rate constants fitted with the pseudo-first order kinetic model (R > 0.96). High-resolution mass spectrometry analysis of the photocatalyzed OA allowed tentative identification of four transformation products. Detoxification was achieved in parallel with the degradation of OA in deionized water and artificial ocean water (≤20 min) but not for seawater. Overall, results suggest that UV/TiO photocatalysis can be an effective approach for degrading OA and their TPs in the marine environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of photocatalysis to degrade marine toxins and its promising potential to protect shellfish harvesting sites.