Marine Toxins in Italy: The More You Look, the More You Find

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are massive proliferations of toxic algal species that occur under appropriate climatic and environmental conditions. HABs may exert their adverse impacts on both the environment and living organisms through the production of marine biotoxins. Consumption of contaminated seafood or also direct exposure to marine biotoxins (swimming, aerosols etc.) can result in human illness or even death. Thousands of marine toxin-related human intoxications are reported every year on a global basis. In Italy, research on marine biotoxins has shown a continuously changing toxin profile with most of the toxin classes so far known being present in seafood and seawater. Starting from the late ‘80s with the first finding of a marine biotoxins, okadaic acid, along the Italian coastline, a number of other classes of marine toxins have been found, namely yessotoxins, pectenotoxins, saxitoxins, domoic acid, spirolides, palytoxins, and azaspiracids. Herein, in chronological order, we provide an overview of the many classes of marine biotoxins that have infested the Italian seawater over the past 25 years.