Patent ID: 7977074

Claim:
A method of biosynthesizing tetrodotoxin, comprising: inoculating a culture medium providing a pure culture of Vibrio alginolyticus; excising a tissue from a tetrodotoxin-bearing organism, homogenizing the excised tissue, filtering to sterilize the homogenized tissue, thereby obtaining a tissue extract from the tetrodotoxin-bearing organism with said Vibrio alginolyticus pure culture and adding said tissue extract obtained from the tetrodotoxin-bearing organism to the inoculated culture medium; transferring said culture medium of Vibrio alginolyticus and tissue extract to a fermenter, wherein the inoculated culture medium is allowed to ferment under conditions suitable to produce tetrodotoxin, thereby biosynthesizing tetrodotoxin, wherein the culture medium in the fermenter is exposed to sterile air and agitation; and isolating and purifying the biosynthesized tetrodotoxin from the fermented culture medium, wherein the biosynthesized tetrodotoxin is at least 90% pure and is produced in an amount of about 0.5 mg/L of culture medium over a course of 3-5 days.