Cyanobacterial chemical ecology

• Main Author: Engelke, Clemens J
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Aberdeen 2001
• Subjects: Blue-green algae; Oscillatoria agardhii; Toxins

This thesis reports the effect of the non-toxic cyanobacterium Oscillatoria agardhii CYA29 and its spent medium on the cell-bound toxin levels in Microcystis aeruginosa PCC7820 and Nodularia sp. PCC7804. Microcystin levels were elevated when O. agardhii or its spent medium were added to cultures of M. aeruginosa PCC7820. This effect was also observed for two nodularin variants in Nodularia PCC7804. However, growth of M. aeruginosa in its own spent medium did not lead to elevated microcystin levels. Some Gram-negative bacteria use quorum sensing, the determination of population density by pheromones, to regulate the expression of traits in a density dependent manner. The presence of the bacterial pheromones, acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs), was investigated in cyanobacteria and a simple and fast synthesis for AHLs employed. No AHLs have been found in the cyanobacterial species tested, neither by Chromobacterium violaceum CV026 nor by Escherichia coli HB101 pUCD607 bioassay. No changes in dry weight or microcystin concentration were observed in M. aeruginosa PCC7820 grown in the presence of the AHL N-hexanoyl-DL-homoserine lactone. The activity of the spent medium of O. agardhii CYA29 was retained when it was heated up to 100°C for 20 min, frozen or freeze-dried. Molecular weight cut-off filtration showed the active compound to be less than 1 kD in size. The active component could not be extracted by dichloromethane or methanol, and activity was lost upon acidification. A small peptide of five amino acid moieties was isolated from an active fraction of the spent medium, four of which have been identified by 1H NMR to be serine, glycine, alanine, and the modified serine(thiazole). To my knowledge this is the first report of serine(thiazole) in natural products and the first thiazole containing peptide from O. agardhii.