Abstract
Allelochemicals are essential agents for the biological control of harmful blooms. It is crucial to identify efficient algal suppressors and understand their mechanisms. This study reports the inhibition of Microcystis aeruginosa growth by 6 phenolic acids derived from plants’ secondary metabolites. The inhibitory effect of phenolic acids was significantly influenced by exposure dose and phenolic acid species. Caffeic acid has the most efficient algal inhibition ability (96 h-EC50 of 5.8 mg/L). In contrast, the other 5 analogs (cinnamic acid, p-coumaric acid, 3-hydroxycinnamic acid, ferulic acid, and isoferulic acid) showed a weak inhibition effect or promotion effect with the exposure dose of 5–100 mg/L. ROS and chlorophyll a content tests combined with metabolomics analysis revealed that caffeic acid could induce the ROS accumulation of M. aeruginosa. They mainly disturbed nucleotide, amino acid, and fatty acid metabolism, leading to the downregulation of most metabolites, including toxins of microcystin LR and cyanopeptolin A, and the precursors of some unpleasant terpenoids. It has been suggested that caffeic acid is an effective agent for controlling M. aeruginosa blooms.
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The authors would like to express their gratitude to EditSprings (https://www.editsprings.com/) for the expert linguistic services provided.
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This work was supported by the West Light Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant No: XAB2020YW12), Graduate Student Innovation Project of North Minzu University (grant No: YCX22170), and Ningxia Provincial Key Research and Development Program (grant No: 2021AAC02022).
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Min Li performed the data analyses and wrote the manuscript; Yayao Wang and Jianxing Xiao performed the experiment; Xingfu Yan and Bingru Liu contributed significantly to analysis and manuscript preparation.
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Li, M., Wang, Y., Xiao, J. et al. Allelopathic inhibition effects and mechanism of phenolic acids to Microcystis aeruginosa. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 45388–45397 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24992-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24992-5