Abstract

Mass spectrometry (MS) analysis plays an important role in the structural elucidation of natural marine toxins. In MS analysis, the chemical structural elucidation is mainly achieved by tandem MS (MS/MS) and multiple stage MS (MSⁿ) techniques, in which fragmented product ions are used to interpret precursor ion structures. Herein we discuss the MS/MS and MSⁿ behaviors of major marine toxins, such as domoic acid, anatoxins, saxitoxins, tetrodotoxins, okadaic acid, dinophysistoxins, azaspiracids, gymnodimines, spirolides, pinnatoxins, brevetoxins, ciguatoxins, yessotoxins, brevisulcenal-F, palytoxins, and protein/peptide toxins like conotoxins. In this review, our primal focus is on organization of literature data after 2000.

Keywords: Fragmentation pathway, marine toxin, mass spectrometry, multiple stages mass spectrometry, structural elucidation, tandem mass spectrometry.

Graphical Abstract