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Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin-producing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon gracile in northeast Germany.

ABSTRACT: Neurotoxic paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins, anatoxin-a (ATX), and hepatotoxic cylindrospermopsin (CYN) have been detected in several lakes in northeast Germany during the last 2 decades. They are produced worldwide by members of the nostocalean genera Anabaena, Cylindrospermopsis, and Aphanizomenon. Although no additional sources of PSP toxins and ATX have been identified in German water bodies to date, the observed CYN concentrations cannot be produced solely by Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, the only known CYN producer in Germany. Therefore, we attempted to identify PSP toxin, ATX, and CYN producers by isolating and characterizing 92 Anabaena, Aphanizomenon, and Anabaenopsis strains from five lakes in northeast Germany. In a polyphasic approach, all strains were morphologically and phylogenetically classified and then tested for PSP toxins, ATX, and CYN by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and screened for the presence of PSP toxin- and CYN-encoding gene fragments. As demonstrated by ELISA and LC-MS, 14 Aphanizomenon gracile strains from Lakes Melang and Scharmützel produced four PSP toxin variants (gonyautoxin 5 [GTX5], decarbamoylsaxitoxin [dcSTX], saxitoxin [STX], and neosaxitoxin [NEO]). GTX5 was the most prevalent PSP toxin variant among the seven strains from Lake Scharmützel, and NEO was the most prevalent among the seven strains from Lake Melang. The sxtA gene, which is part of the saxitoxin gene cluster, was found in the 14 PSP toxin-producing A. gracile strains and in 11 non-PSP toxin-producing Aphanizomenon issatschenkoi, A. flos-aquae, Anabaena planktonica, and Anabaenopsis elenkinii strains. ATX and CYN were not detected in any of the isolated strains. This study is the first confirming the role of A. gracile as a PSP toxin producer in German water bodies.

SUBMITTER: Ballot A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2820976 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin-producing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon gracile in northeast Germany.

Ballot Andreas A Fastner Jutta J Wiedner Claudia C

Applied and environmental microbiology 20100104 4

Neurotoxic paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins, anatoxin-a (ATX), and hepatotoxic cylindrospermopsin (CYN) have been detected in several lakes in northeast Germany during the last 2 decades. They are produced worldwide by members of the nostocalean genera Anabaena, Cylindrospermopsis, and Aphanizomenon. Although no additional sources of PSP toxins and ATX have been identified in German water bodies to date, the observed CYN concentrations cannot be produced solely by Aphanizomenon flos-aq ...[more]

PMID: 20048055

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Project description:Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxin production has been detected worldwide in the cyanobacterial genera Anabaena, Lyngbya, Scytonema, Cuspidothrix and Aphanizomenon. In Europe Aphanizomenon gracile and Cuspidothrix issatschenkoi are the only known producers of PSP toxins and are found in Southwest and Central European freshwater bodies. In this study the PSP toxin producing Aphanizomenon sp. strain NIVA-CYA 851 was isolated from the Norwegian Lake Hillestadvannet. In a polyphasic approach NIVA-CYA 851 was morphologically and phylogenetically classified, and investigated for toxin production. The strain NIVA-CYA 851 was identified as A. gracile using 16S rRNA gene phylogeny and was confirmed to produce neosaxitoxin, saxitoxin and gonyautoxin 5 by LC-MS. The whole sxt gene clusters (circa 27.3 kb) of four A. gracile strains: NIVA-CYA 851 (Norway); NIVA-CYA 655 & NIVA-CYA 676 (Germany); and UAM 529 (Spain), all from latitudes between 40° and 59° North were sequenced and compared with the sxt gene cluster of reference strain A. gracile NH-5 from the USA. All five sxt gene clusters are highly conserved with similarities exceeding 99.4%, but they differ slightly in the number and presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and insertions/deletions (In/Dels). Altogether 178 variable sites (44 SNPs and 4 In/Dels, comprising 134 nucleotides) were found in the sxt gene clusters of the Norwegian, German and Spanish strains compared to the reference strain. Thirty-nine SNPs were located in 16 of the 27 coding regions. The sxt gene clusters of NIVA-CYA 851, NIVA-CYA 655, NIVA-CYA 676 and UAM 529, were characterized by 15, 16, 19 and 23 SNPs respectively. Only the Norwegian strain NIVA-CYA 851 possessed an insertion of 126 base pairs (bp) in the noncoding area between the sxtA and sxtE genes and a deletion of 6 nucleotides in the sxtN gene. The sxtI gene showed the highest variability and is recommended as the best genetic marker for further phylogenetic studies of the sxt gene cluster of A. gracile. This study confirms for the first time the role of A. gracile as a PSP toxin producer in Norwegian waters, representing the northernmost occurrence of PSP toxin producing A. gracile in Europe known so far.

Project description:BackgroundSaxitoxin and its analogues collectively known as the paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) are neurotoxic alkaloids and are the cause of the syndrome named paralytic shellfish poisoning. PSTs are produced by a unique biosynthetic pathway, which involves reactions that are rare in microbial metabolic pathways. Nevertheless, distantly related organisms such as dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria appear to produce these toxins using the same pathway. Hypothesised explanations for such an unusual phylogenetic distribution of this shared uncommon metabolic pathway, include a polyphyletic origin, an involvement of symbiotic bacteria, and horizontal gene transfer.ResultsWe describe the identification, annotation and bioinformatic characterisation of the putative paralytic shellfish toxin biosynthesis clusters in an Australian isolate of Anabaena circinalis and an American isolate of Aphanizomenon sp., both members of the Nostocales. These putative PST gene clusters span approximately 28 kb and contain genes coding for the biosynthesis and export of the toxin. A putative insertion/excision site in the Australian Anabaena circinalis AWQC131C was identified, and the organization and evolution of the gene clusters are discussed. A biosynthetic pathway leading to the formation of saxitoxin and its analogues in these organisms is proposed.ConclusionThe PST biosynthesis gene cluster presents a mosaic structure, whereby genes have apparently transposed in segments of varying size, resulting in different gene arrangements in all three sxt clusters sequenced so far. The gene cluster organizational structure and sequence similarity seems to reflect the phylogeny of the producer organisms, indicating that the gene clusters have an ancient origin, or that their lateral transfer was also an ancient event. The knowledge we gain from the characterisation of the PST biosynthesis gene clusters, including the identity and sequence of the genes involved in the biosynthesis, may also afford the identification of these gene clusters in dinoflagellates, the cause of human mortalities and significant financial loss to the tourism and shellfish industries.

Project description:Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins (PSTs) are a family of more than 30 natural alkaloids synthesized by dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria whose toxicity in animals is mediated by voltage-gated Na(+) channel blocking. The export of PST analogues may be through SxtF and SxtM, two putative MATE (multidrug and toxic compound extrusion) family transporters encoded in PSTs biosynthetic gene cluster (sxt). sxtM is present in every sxt cluster analyzed; however, sxtF is only present in the Cylindrospermopsis-Raphidiopsis clade. These transporters are energetically coupled with an electrochemical gradient of proton (H(+)) or sodium (Na(+)) ions across membranes. Because the functional role of PSTs remains unknown and methods for genetic manipulation in PST-producing organisms have not yet been developed, protein structure analyses will allow us to understand their function. By analyzing the sxt cluster of eight PST-producing cyanobacteria, we found no correlation between the presence of sxtF or sxtM and a specific PSTs profile. Phylogenetic analyses of SxtF/M showed a high conservation of SxtF in the Cylindrospermopsis-Raphidiopsis clade, suggesting conserved substrate affinity. Two domains involved in Na(+) and drug recognition from NorM proteins (MATE family) of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and V. cholerae are present in SxtF/M. The Na(+) recognition domain was conserved in both SxtF/M, indicating that Na(+) can maintain the role as a cation anti-transporter. Consensus motifs for toxin binding differed between SxtF and SxtM implying differential substrate binding. Through protein modeling and docking analysis, we found that there is no marked affinity between the recognition domain and a specific PST analogue. This agrees with our previous results of PST export in R. brookii D9, where we observed that the response to Na(+) incubation was similar to different analogues. These results reassert the hypothesis regarding the involvement of Na(+) in toxin export, as well as the motifs L(398)XGLQD(403) (SxtM) and L(390)VGLRD(395) (SxtF) in toxin recognition.

Dataset Information

Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin-producing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon gracile in northeast Germany.

Publications

Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin-producing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon gracile in northeast Germany.

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