Significance Statement
The biomagnification of BMAA along food chains was synthetically
investigated and discussed in the diatom-dominated marine ecosystem. The
ubiquity of BAMA, an isomer of BMAA, was confirmed in the phytoplankton
samples using the pre-column derivatization method. Results showed that
diatoms are the source of BMAA in marine ecosystem because 21 of 56
diatom strains contained this neurotoxin. No BMAA was detected in the
isolated bacterial strains from the gut of the typical vector of BMAA,Neverita didyma , which further confirmed that the toxin BMAA was
transferred and accumulated along food chains. All these findings
improve our understanding for the environmental behavior and risk to
human health of the neurotoxin BMAA.