Identification of Causative Fish for a Food Poisioning in Taiwan by Using SDS-PAGE Technique

Abstract

A food poisoning incident has occurred due to ingestion of red grouper meat on February 2006 in southern Taiwan. Two patients showed diarrhea, muscle weakness, vertigo and severe muscle pain. The 2 pieces of causative residues were investigated by toxicity assay. In order to identify the fish species of causative samples, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) technique was applied in this study. According to the low molecular weight region (＜30.0 kD) of species-specific patterns extracted from both myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic proteins, two poisoning samples were identified as Lutjanus bohar. L. bohar is a notorious grouper species with ciguatera in the world