Identification of Volatile Metabolites Produced by Blue-Green Algae

Abstract

Some of the volatile metabolites of eight species of blue-green algae of the genera Oscillatoria, Phormidium, Aphanizomenon, and Anabaena were identified by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). As a result, five sesquiterpene alcohols (C15H26O) and two sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (germacrene-D and γ-cadi-nene) were detected in the cultures of Oscillatoriasplendida. O. amoena, and Anabaenamacrospora. Three aliphatic hydrocarbons (n-heptadecane,1-heptadecene and 7-methylheptadecane) were also identified in the cultures of most of these algae. None of these compounds appeared to impart an unpleasant taste or odor to water supplies.

Headspace solvent microextraction as a simple and highly sensitive sample pretreatment technique for ultra trace determination of geosmin in aquatic media

“…Classical solvent extraction has also been applied to the determination of geosmin [10,11]. Of course it is obvious that solvent extraction suffers from consuming large amounts of potentially toxic organic solvents and introducing them to the environment as liquid waste or through evaporation in the enrichment step.…”

Volatile Components of the Cyanobacterium Oscillatoria perornata (Skuja)

“…The major component was heptadecane (57.0%). Heptadecane has been reported to be a common major volatile component in many other cyanobacterial species (13,(21)(22)(23). The second most abundant component was 2-methylisoborneol (29.4%), responsible for the musty odor associated with this cyanobacteria (5).…”

Volatile organic compounds: microbiological aspects and some technological implications

“…T h e production of volatiles by cyanobacteria has also been shown (Jiittner et al 1983;Juttner 1987). They may be partly responsible for the earthy, musty and unpleasant odour and taste of some public water supplies (Tsuchiya et al 1981(Tsuchiya et al , 1982Kikuchi et al 1983;Tsuchiya and Matsumoto 1988). Other possible causes are volatiles such as geosmin or 2-phenyl ethanol produced by fungi (Kikuchi et al 1983), streptomycetes (Burnam 1973; Tsuchiya et al 1978;Tsuchiya et al 1980), or by free living amoebae such as Vannelku spp.…”