Phosphorus-starved cells of Anabaena flos-aquae rapidly increase their capacity to reduce acetylene to ethylene when they receive phosphorus. This response may be used as a bioassay for detecting available phosphorus in aquatic ecosystems. The sensitivity of the method compares favorably with conventional methods for measuring dissolved orthophosphate, and has the additional advantage that it m...

Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.49) has been partially purified from Anacystis nidulans and Anabaena flos-aquae by means of ammonium sulfate fractionation and exclusion gel chromatography and the kinetic properties determined.Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase from these blue-green algae exhibits Michaelis-Menten kinetics at pH 6.7. At this pH, Km values of 0.37 mm for glucose 6-phos...

A wide range of microorganisms was tested to determine their sensitivity to low concentrations of bisulfite-sulfite and nitrite, solubility products of SO2 and NO2, respectively. Photosynthesis by blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) was more strongly inhibited by 0.1 mM bisulfite-sulfite and 1 mM nitrite at pH 6.0 than photosynthesis by eucaryotic algae and respiration of bacteria, fungi, and prot...

Gas vesicles are organelles that provide buoyancy to the aquatic microorganisms that harbor them. The gas vesicle shell consists almost exclusively of the hydrophobic 70-residue gas vesicle protein A, arranged in an ordered array. Solid-state NMR spectra of intact collapsed gas vesicles from the cyanobacterium Anabaena flos-aquae show duplication of certain gas vesicle protein A resonances, ind...

Functional amyloids have been identified in a wide range of organisms, taking on a variety of biological roles and being controlled by remarkable mechanisms of directed assembly. Here, we report that amyloid fibrils constitute the ribs of the buoyancy organelles of Anabaena flos-aquae. The walls of these gas-filled vesicles are known to comprise a single protein, GvpA, arranged in a low pitch h...

This work compared the sensitivity of three cyanobacteria (Anabaena flos-aquae, Microcystis flosaquae and Mirocystis aeruginosa) as well as five green algae (Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata, Scenedesmus quadricauda, Scenedesmus obliquus, Chlorella vulgaris and Chlorella pyrenoidosa) to four pesticides through 96h short-term chronic tests. The results showed that the toxicity of the pesticides t...

the toxicity of 7 herbicides to the three cyanobacteria was tested in this work. the results indicated that: (1) there was a highly significant relationship between dried weight or chlorophyll-a and od680nm for tested cyanobacteria; (2) the toxicity of the tested herbicides with the order from high to low was: photosynthesis-inhibiting > accase inhibitor > protox inhibiting herbicides; (3) the ...

The present research was designed to study the effects of an extract from the edible cyanophyta Aphanizomenon flos-aquae on human natural killer (NK) cells. We have previously shown, using a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled crossover design, that ingestion of 1.5 g of dried whole A. flos-aquae resulted in a transient reduction in peripheral blood NK cells in 21 healthy human volunteer...

The bloom dynamics of two planktonic, nitrogen-fixing species of blue-green algae Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (L.) Ralfs and Nodularia spumigenaMertens in the Gulf of Gdańsk were studied. The Gulf of Gdańsk is a shallow part of the Baltic Sea where the water has a mean salinity of ca 8 PSU. Increased riverine nutrient input and/or changes in the N:P ratio are indicated as factors causing blue-gree...