The summer-autumn dominance of the toxic cyanobacterium Planktothrix agardhii was described in the lowland polymictic Siemianówka Dam Reservoir (SDR) in 2010 and 2011. The study was conducted at a station located in the deepest part of the reservoir. The species composition of phytoplankton was very similar at the four depths analyzed. Microcystins were continually present in the cyanobacterial...

Microcystins are a family of cyclic peptides that are potent inhibitors of the protein phosphatase families PP1 and PP2A. Only three human proteins are thought to be able to mediate the hepatic uptake of microcystins (the organic anion-transporting polypeptides OATP1B1, OATP1B3, and OATP1A2), and the predominant hepatic expression of these transporters accounts for the liver-specific toxicity o...

The occurrence of freshwater harmful algal bloom toxins impacting the coastal ocean is an emerging threat, and the potential for invertebrate prey items to concentrate toxin and cause harm to human and wildlife consumers is not yet fully recognized. We examined toxin uptake and release in marine mussels for both particulate and dissolved phases of the hepatotoxin microcystin, produced by the fr...

Roles of nutrients and other environmental variables in development of cyanobacterial bloom and its toxicity are complex and not well understood. We have monitored the photoautotrophic growth, total microcystin concentration, and microcystins synthetase gene (mcyA) expression in lab-grown strains of Microcystis NIES 843 (reference strain), KW (Wangsong Reservoir, South Korea), and Durgakund (Va...

Current approaches for assessing human health risks associated with cyanotoxins often rely on the quantification of microcystin. Significant limitations of current approaches are cost and time to obtain a result. To address these challenges, a numerical index for screening microcystin risks above the World Health Organization's (WHO) low-risk threshold for microcystin was developed for eutrophi...

The cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa is known to proliferate in freshwater ecosystems and to produce microcystins. It is now well established that much of the variability of bloom toxicity is due to differences in the relative proportions of microcystin-producing and non-microcystin-producing cells in cyanobacterial populations. In an attempt to elucidate changes in their relative proporti...

A novel immunoassay was developed for specific detection of cyanobacterial cyclic peptide hepatotoxins which inhibit protein phosphatases. Immunoassay methods currently used for microcystin and nodularin detection and analysis do not provide information on the toxicity of microcystin and/or nodularin variants. Furthermore, protein phosphatase inhibition-based assays for these toxins are not spe...

Ruthenium Red (RuR) is widely used as an inhibitor of ryanodine receptor Ca(2+) release channels, but has additional effects such as the induction of Ca(2+) sensitization of contraction of permeabilized smooth muscles. To address the mechanism underlying this process, we examined the effects of RuR on contractility in permeabilized guinea-pig ileum and on the activity of myosin-light-chain phos...

Microcystins are potent phosphatase inhibitors and cellular toxins. They require active transport by OATP1B1 and OATP1B3 transporters for uptake into human cells, and the high expression of these transporters in the liver accounts for their selective hepatic toxicity. Several human tumors have been shown to have high levels of expression of OATP1B3 but not OATP1B1, the main transporter in liver...

The occurrence and distribution of microcystins were investigated in Lake Taihu, the third largest lake in China. An extensive survey, larger and broader in scale than previous studies, was conducted in summer 2010. The highest microcystin concentration was found at southern part of Taihu, which was newly included in this survey. In northern coastal areas, total cellular concentrations of 20 to...