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BY-NC-ND 3.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter September 10, 2009

Modulation of biocidal activity of Calothrix sp. and Anabaena sp. by environmental factors

  • Balasubramanian Radhakrishnan EMAIL logo , Radha Prasanna , Pranita Jaiswal , Saswati Nayak and Prem Dureja
From the journal Biologia

Abstract

An investigation was undertaken to evaluate a set of cyanobacterial strains in terms of production of biocidal compounds exhibiting allelochemical and fungicidal properties. Two cyanobacterial strains — Anabaena sp. and Calothrix sp. were selected for further investigation, on the basis of their larger inhibition zones on the lawn of Synechocystis and Synechococcus sp. and two phytopathogenic fungi — Rhizoctonia bataticola and Pythium debaryanum. The diameter of the inhibition zone was largest when extracellular filtrates of the two cultures incubated at high light intensity (90–100 μmol photons m−2 s−1) and temperature (40 ± 2 °C) or grown in medium containing two-folds higher P (1.4 mg/L, as compared to 0.7 mg/L in BG 11 medium) were taken. A pH of 8 was the most optimal for both strains, in terms of growth and biocidal activity. Partial purification of ethyl acetate extract using TLC, followed by GLC revealed a single peak. This study highlights the importance of environmental factors in aggravating or reducing the toxic effects of these harmful cyanobacteria and their potential as a biocontrol agent.

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Published Online: 2009-9-10
Published in Print: 2009-10-1

© 2009 Slovak Academy of Sciences

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

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