Production of phthalate esters by nuisance freshwater algae and cyanobacteria.

Phthalate esters are widely distributed pollutants which originate from synthetic plasticizer and are known to act as toxicants as well as environmental pheromones in the aquatic ecosystems. From investigating sixteen species of freshwater algae and cyanobacteria we revealed that some of them were capable of producing either di(n-butyl)phthalate (DBP) or mono(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (MEHP) or both. These phthalate esters would be released into the environment under stress conditions. The incubation of the cells in culture medium containing NaH(13)CO(3) confirmed that both phthalates were de novo synthesized by the studied cells. This study suggested that the nuisance freshwater micro-algae and cyanobacteria growing in eutrophic waters might affect the aquatic ecosystem via the production of these phthalate esters.

PRODUCTION OF NATURAL BUTYLATED HYDROXYTOLUENE AS AN ANTIOXIDANT BY FRESHWATER PHYTOPLANKTON(1).

Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) is one of the synthetic antioxidant agents commonly used for food additives. In the present study, we determined that four freshwater phytoplankton, including a green alga (Botryococcus braunii Kütz.) and three cyanobacteria [Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii (Wollosz.) Seenaya et Sabba Raju, Microcystis aeruginosa (Kütz.) and Oscillatoria sp.] were capable of producing this compound. Hexane extracts from all the studied species exhibited various degrees of antioxidative properties when they were tested with the ß-carotene-linoleate (ß-CL) assay and the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free-radical-scavenging assay. The highest antioxidant activity was observed in the crude extracts of M. aeruginosa and B. braunii, which displayed a similar activity to synthetic BHT. Gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis of the purified fractions revealed that the active compound was identical to synthetic BHT. Culturing under various irradiances gave rise to different magnitudes of BHT production in cyanobacterial cells, showing that more BHT was produced in the cells irradiated with a higher light intensity, and its production was irradiance dependent. Moreover, the quantity of cellular BHT displayed a positive correlation with the antioxidative activity of the tested species. The present study confirms the production of BHT in all four of the studied freshwater phytoplankton and suggests that these species constitute a potential source for producing natural BHT.