Abstract
Twenty water bodies in China were sampled, and 186 strains of different Microcystis species were isolated, from which eight morphospecies were identified and 43 stains containing the mcyB gene were detected. Phylogenetic analysis based on the mcyB gene indicated that the microcystin (MC)-producing Microcystis in China could be divided into two groups (I and II) and showed significant differences between the two groups. The maximum sequence similarity was 69.1%. Microcystins (MCs) were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, and no microcystin-RR (MC-RR) was detected in some strains belonging to Group II. Compared to other regions of the world, the proportion of Chinese MC-producing Microcystis was different, and the regional differences were more obvious. A whole-cell Polymerase Chain Reactio (PCR) assay was conducted to analyze the proportion of the mcyB gene in the laboratory cultured and field cultured Microcystis. The proportion of four morphospecies (M. vividis, M. ichthyoblabe, M. novacekii, and M. aeruginosa) that contained the mcyB gene exceeded 50% in the field cultured samples. Compared with former studies, M. aeruginosa was the most likely morphotype that can produce MCs in the world. This study provided new insight of Microcystis hazard assessment and field monitoring.
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Data Availability Statement
The data generated in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgment
We are grateful to the lab members from Harmful Alga Group for assistances with samples collection and strains isolation. We are also thankful to Dr. Shen LIN, Li YANG, Zhongjie WANG, Mengling ZHU, and Prof. Zhongxing WU for your help in this research.
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Supported by the Science and Technology Project of Henan Province (Nos. 19A180018, 192102310306) and the Key Laboratory of Algal Biology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 2018001)
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Liu, Y., Chen, Y., Fang, H. et al. Relationship between morphospecies and microcystin-producing genotypes of Microcystis species in Chinese freshwaters. J. Ocean. Limnol. 39, 1926–1937 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0276-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0276-2