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Article

Extraction methods for phycocyanin determination in freshwater filamentous cyanobacteria and their application in a shallow lake

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Citation

Horvath H, Kovacs AW, Riddick C & Presing M (2013) Extraction methods for phycocyanin determination in freshwater filamentous cyanobacteria and their application in a shallow lake. European Journal of Phycology, 48 (3), pp. 278-286. https://doi.org/10.1080/09670262.2013.821525

Abstract
Phycocyanin (PC) is one of the water-soluble accessory pigments of cyanobacteria species, and its concentration in aquatic systems is used to estimate the presence and relative abundance of blue-green algae. PC concentration and the PC/Chl-a ratio of four N2-fixing filamentous cyanobacteria strains (Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii, Anabaena spiroides, Aphanizomenon flos-aquae and Aphanizomenon issatschenkoi) common to Lake Balaton (Hungary) were determined using repeated freezing and thawing. A strong linear correlation was found between the extracted PC and Chl-a concentrations for all strains at high Chl-a concentrations (almost stable PC/Chl-a ratio in the range of 20?100 ?g l?1 Chl-a). Extraction of PC and Chl-a from samples with low biomass of cyanobacteria (less than 20 ?g l?1 Chl-a) proved to be unreliable using the standard protocol of freeze¨Cthaw cycles (coefficients of variation exceeding 10¨C15%). In order to find an extraction method that is robust in fresh waters characterized by low algae biomass (e.g. Lake Balaton), the effectiveness of four extraction methods (repeated freeze¨Cthaw method and homogenization with mortar and pestle, Ultrasonic, and Polytron homogenizer) were compared using C. raciborskii. It was found that the efficiency of extraction of phycocyanin was highest when a single freeze¨Cthaw cycle was followed by sonication (25% additional yield compared with using the freeze¨Cthaw method alone). Applying this combined method to surface water samples of Lake Balaton, a strong correlation was found between PC concentration and cyanobacterial biomass (R 2 = 0.9436), whilst the repeated freezing¨Cthawing method found no detectable PC content. Here we show that the combined sonication/freeze¨Cthaw method could be suitable for measuring filamentous cyanobacteria PC content, even at low concentrations; as well as for the estimation of cyanobacterial contribution to total biomass in fresh waters.

Keywords
Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii; extraction methods; fresh water; N2-fixing filamentous cyanobacteria; phycocyanin; pigment analyses

Journal
European Journal of Phycology: Volume 48, Issue 3

StatusPublished
Funders
Publication date31/12/2013
Publication date online23/07/2013
Date accepted by journal07/01/2013
URL
PublisherTaylor and Francis
ISSN0967-0262
eISSN1469-4433