The Science of Marine Toxins
[Graduate School of Agricultural Science ]
Professor Mari Yamashita
Associate Professor Keiichi Konoki
Associate Professor Go Nishitani
Assistant Professor Yufuko Cho
[Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences]
Associate Professor Yudai Kudo
Course period: January 14,2026 (Wed) - March 17,2026 (Tue)
Registration opens: October 8 (Wed)
※The course is in Japanese.
※The registration page is written in Japanese.
This course introduces marine toxins from both chemical and biological perspectives, covering their origins, biosynthesis, environmental and ecological interactions, mechanisms of action, and their role as food poisoning agents.
Week 1 covers ciguatera poisoning from fish and its causative toxins: ciguatoxin, mycotoxin, and other polyether toxins; toxins from blue-green algae attached to seaweed; and neurotoxic and diarrheic shellfish toxins along with okadaic acid.
Week 2 covers the diverse aspects of tetrodotoxin, known as pufferfish poison. It also discusses research aimed at elucidating the biosynthetic pathway of paralytic shellfish toxins and covers domoic acid, the amnesic shellfish toxin, and its analog, kaininic acid.
Week 3 begins with an explanation of various testing methods for assessing toxicity. It then presents case studies using electrophysiological experimental methods to investigate the inhibitory effects of pufferfish toxins and paralytic shellfish toxins on voltage-gated sodium channels.
The latter half focuses on tetrodotoxin, found in the terrestrial amphibian newt, covering compound identification methods, tolerance mechanisms, the origin of the toxin, and its biosynthesis.
Week 4: The first half covers the actual state of fishery damage caused by marine toxins produced by plankton, their ecology, and countermeasures for damage mitigation. The second half introduces the biosynthesis and metabolism of paralytic shellfish toxins produced by plankton, the genes and enzymes involved, and research history from historical background to the latest topics.
※This video is played in Japanese.
