Tests for the toxicity assessment of cyanobacterial bloom samples

Abstract

Cyanobacterial (blue-green algal) blooms are one of the common consequences of the increasing eutrophication of surface waters. The production of cyanobacterial toxins and their presence in drinking and recreational waters represents a growing danger to human and animal health. Due to a lack of toxin standards and to resource limitations on the wide-scale use of analytical methods (e.g., high-performance liquid chromatography, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)) in cyanobacterial toxin monitoring, it is necessary to assess and to develop additional methods for their detection and estimation. Microbiotests using invertebrates offer a possible approach for the inexpensive and straightforward detection and assessment of cyanobacterial bloom toxicity. Three microbiotests with: Thamnocephalus platyurus, Daphnia magna, and Spirostomum ambiguum were examined with bloom samples containing hepatotoxic microcystin-LR and up to five additional microcystin variants. Two kinds of cyanobacterial bloom sample preparations were tested: crude extracts (CE) and purified extracts (PE). The highest toxicity was found when CE was used for microbiotests. The sensitivity of microorganisms decreased from S. ambiguum to T. platyurus and to D. magna. A statistically significant correlation was found between microcystin concentration and T. platyurus biotest, and between mouse bioassay and S. ambiguum results. Addition of Me2SO (1%, v/v) is a possible method to increase the sensitivity of the microorganisms for microcystin-LR.

Testicular toxicity of cyanobacterial biomass in Japanese quails

“…Apart from microcystins, a cyanobacterial biomass can contain a number of biologically active compounds or other individual cyanotoxins (Okumura et al, 2007). Some studies reported that their extracts (mixtures of compounds from cyanobacteria) had much greater effects than would be expected from the concentration of known cyanotoxins (Oberemm et al, 1999;Palikova et al, 2007;Tarczynska et al, 2001). This could have been due to the effect of unknown substances and/or due to the mutual interactions of the individual mixture components.…”

Biochemical parameters in Tubifex tubifex as an integral part of complex sediment toxicity assessment

“…Tubifex 1 Background, aim, and scope Many water reservoirs worldwide that have been designed to serve as water sources, for recreation or other purposes, have long-term problems with toxic water blooms. Blooms dominated by cyanobacteria have been shown to cause serious environmental and health problems (Dawson 1998), as well as negative ecological consequences such as perturbation of natural phytoplankton succession in eutrophic and hypertrophic waters (Tarczynska et al 2001). There has been a lot of discussion on the measures needed for the restoration of reservoir and lake water quality.…”

Cyanotoxins: Bioaccumulation and Effects on Aquatic Animals

“…The standard test with the anostracoid crustacean Tamnocephalus platyurus has been applied in some studies in a tentative to verify the toxicity of cyanobacterial blooms, providing results comparable to mouse bioassays [121,122,123,124,125]. Vasconcelos et al [126] tested the effects of living cells of toxic and non-toxic strains of M. aeruginosa on Procambarus clarkii (Crustacea, Decapoda) and showed that juveniles were more susceptible to non-toxic strains, suggesting that other toxins or compounds, more potent than MCs, may have being produced.…”