The impact of cation concentration on Microcystis (cyanobacteria) scum formation

Cyanobacterial scums at the surface of the lakes are potentially harmful phenomena with increasing occurrence in the last decades, and the causes that lead to their formation are still an unresolved issue. In order to better understand what triggers the scums, we investigated the effect of several M...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2019-02, Vol.9 (1), p.3017-3017, Article 3017
Main Authors: Drugă, Bogdan, Buda, Doriana-Mădălina, Szekeres, Edina, Chiş, Ciprian, Chiş, Iuliana, Sicora, Cosmin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/326/171/1878
631/326/2522
82/29
96/34
Biological research
Calcium chloride
Cell adhesion & migration
Cell aggregation
Cell culture
Cyanobacteria
Edetic acid
Experiments
Harvesting
Humanities and Social Sciences
Laboratories
Lakes
Light
Lysis
Magnesium
multidisciplinary
Physiology
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Scum
Toxins
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Summary:Cyanobacterial scums at the surface of the lakes are potentially harmful phenomena with increasing occurrence in the last decades, and the causes that lead to their formation are still an unresolved issue. In order to better understand what triggers the scums, we investigated the effect of several Mg 2+ and Ca 2+ ion concentrations in promoting them in eight Microcystis aeruginosa strains. The possibility to prevent scum formation by using the ion chelator EDTA was also explored. We found that in some strains the cell aggregation takes place under lower ion source concentrations (20 mM MgSO 4 or CaCl 2 ), while in others this phenomenon does not occur even at 60 mM concentration. The scum formation correlated to the amount of extracellular polymeric substances (between 234 and 351 µg/cell). EDTA failed to prevent the scum formation in most strains, and in turn it caused cell lysis followed by the release of cellular content into the culture medium. We emphasize the relevance of these results for cyanobacterial scum formation in the environment and we also suggest that controlling the salinity of the medium (by manipulating the ion concentration) is a potentially efficient method for biomass harvesting in large ponds/tanks.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-39619-y