Response of Cyanobacteria to Pesticides: A Biochemical and Molecular Approach

📖 The Scoop

Cyanobacteria are known by different names such as, Blue-Green Algae or Cyanobacteria, Schizobacteria or Myxobacteria, Myxophyceae and Cyanophyceae. These are the first plant forms, which got the power of chlorophyll in their thylakoids and started the life supporting process of photosynthesis on the earth. Inoculation of crop plants with nitrogen fixing microbes (in the form of biofertilizers) has become an accepted biotechnology in US, Germany, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, China, India and some other parts of the world also. Cyanobacteria, formerly called blue-green algae, are the most primitive form of algae under plant kingdom. These are called blue-green algae because they contain the photosynthetic pigments-phycocyanin (dominant pigment), phycoerythryin and chlorophyll a, which are responsible for their characteristic blue-green colour. Cyanobacteria produce and secrete a variety of biological substances such as auxins (Indole Acetic Acid, Indole Butyric Acid, Naphthalene Acetic Acid), gibberellins (GA1 to GA3) and vitamins, which promote the crop growth. Cyanobacteria can also reduce the oxidizable matter of the soil, remove soil compaction, narrow the C:N ratio and facilitate the aeration in the rhizosphere zone. The paddy field ecosystem provides a favorable environment for the growth of cyanobacteria (blue green algae) with respect to their requirements for light, water, high temperature, and nutrient availability. Environmental stresses influence a plethora of physiological activities in living organisms. Cellular adaptation to environmental stress is the major process that protects organism from deleterious effects of various stresses like pesticide, salt, temperature, heavy metals etc. Being cosmopolitan in distribution, cyanobacteria are thought to have been exposed to different levels and types of stressors during their development, thus providing a suitable system for analyzing the adaptive mechanisms developed in response to changing stress conditions. Looking into the enormous potentiality of cyanobacteria, the authors have presented an in-depth investigation in the book Response of Cyanobacteria to Pesticides: A Biochemical and Molecular Approach to explore the effect of administered doses of pesticides (Endosulfan and Tebuconazole) on three different cyanobacterial species (Anabaena fertilissima Rao, Aulosira fertilissima Ghose, Westiellopsis prolifica Janet), morphological changes such as color of the cells, cell shape and heterocyst frequency, variations in pigment contents like chlorophyll a, total carotenoids, phycobilin pigments (phycocyanin, phycoerythrin, allophycocyanin), response of metabolites like carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, phenols, activity of enzymes like nitrate reductase, glutamine synthatase and succinate dehydrogenase, protein profiling by Soduim Dodecyl Sulfate - Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), genomic DNA profiling by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD-PCR), and molecular characterization by 16S rDNA amplification of all three cyanobacterial species. This book would certainly be helpful to students, faculties, researchers, academicians, and molecular biologists in enhancing the knowledge about pesticide toxicology, biochemical response, and molecular aspects of cyanobacteria at microcosm as well as macrocosm scales. 

Genre: Science / Environmental Science (fancy, right?)