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High Light Intensity Augments Mercury Toxicity in Cyanobacterium Nostoc muscorum

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Abstract

The present study is aimed at investigating the role of growth irradiance in determining the extent of mercury (Hg) toxicity on various physiological parameters viz. growth, pigment contents, photosynthesis, respiration, 14CO2 fixation, photosynthetic electron transport, photorespiration and enzyme activity of cyanobacterium Nostoc muscorum. A general decline was observed in all these parameters with increasing concentration of Hg except for carotenoids content and respiratory activity which exhibited significant enhancement. This effect was more pronounced in high light (130 μmol photon m−2 s−1) exposed cells as compared to normal (70 μmol photon m−2 s−1) and low (10 μmol photon m−2 s−1) light exposed cells. Among the photosynthetic electron transport activities, whole chain was found to be more sensitive than photosystem II (PSII) and photosystem I (PSI). 14CO2 fixation was more affected as compared to O2 evolution when exposed to Hg and different light intensities. Photorespiratory activity, which is an index of protecting organisms from light-induced damage, also showed a similar declining trend. Enzyme assay revealed that among the carboxylating enzymes, activity of RUBISCO was more severely inhibited than PEPCase. Thus, these results suggest that Hg itself was toxic at all tested concentrations and high light intensity augmented its toxicity in N. muscorum inhibiting the growth, pigment contents and photosynthetic activity of the organism.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to The Head, Department of Botany, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, for providing necessary laboratory facilities and to the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India, for providing grants to purchase necessary instruments for the experiments performed. The authors are also indebted to Prof. L.C. Rai, BHU, Varanasi, for giving the permission to use the liquid scintillation counter (L.K.B., Wallace 1209, Rockbeta, USA) for 14CO2 fixation experiment.

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  1. Ranjan Plant Physiology and Biochemistry Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, 211 002, UP, India

    Ranjana Singh, Gunjan Dubey, Vijay Pratap Singh, Prabhat Kumar Srivastava, Sushil Kumar & Sheo Mohan Prasad

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  1. Ranjana Singh
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  2. Gunjan Dubey
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  3. Vijay Pratap Singh
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Correspondence to Sheo Mohan Prasad.

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Singh, R., Dubey, G., Singh, V.P. et al. High Light Intensity Augments Mercury Toxicity in Cyanobacterium Nostoc muscorum . Biol Trace Elem Res 149, 262–272 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-012-9421-x

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