Abstract: In order to understand the accumulation of water bloom microcystin in herbivorous aquatic snails, the standard toxin MC-LR was added in snail aquaculture water at the concentrations of 8 μg/L and 80μg/L, resulting in low and high toxicity  groups. The feeding time lasted 50 days and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to determine the amount of the toxin in different organs from the snails every other 10 days. The results showed that all investigated tissues had accumulation of MC-LR. The accumulation capacity of the toxin in inedible tissues (14.94μg/kg at the maximum level) of snails was much more than that in edible tissues (2.49μg/kg at the maximum level). In addition, the maximum accumulation in the high toxicity group presented a 6-fold increase when compared with the low toxicity group. The microcystic toxin accumulation in edible tissues from snails was in the safe range according to the WHO limit (1μg/L) standard, but risk may still exist at the same time.

Key words: microcystic toxin, snails, environmental simulation, aquaculture, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)