Abstract
As one of the most threatening challenges to the natural environment and human health, cadmium (Cd) pollution has seriously impacted natural organisms. Green algae, such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii), can provide a safer, lower cost, and more effective ecological approach to the treatment of heavy metal ions in wastewater due to their sorption properties. However, heavy metal ions affect C. reinhardtii when adsorbed. Melatonin is able to protect the plant body from damage when the plant is under biotic/abiotic stress. Therefore, we investigated the effects of melatonin on the cell morphology, chlorophyll content, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, enzymatic activity of the antioxidant system, gene expression, and the ascorbic acid (AsA)-glutathione (GSH) cycle of C. reinhardtii under the stress of Cd (13 mg/L). Our results indicated that Cd significantly induced photoinhibition and overaccumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). By application with the concentration of 1.0 μM melatonin, the algal solute of C. reinhardtii under the Cd stress gradually regained its green color, the cell morphology became intact, and the photosynthetic electron transport function was retained. However, in the melatonin-silenced strain, there was a significant decrease in all of the above indicators. In addition, the use of exogenous melatonin or the expression of endogenous melatonin genes could enhance the intracellular enzyme activities of catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR). It also upregulated the expression of active enzyme genes such as SOD1, CAT1, FSD1, GSH1, GPX5, and GSHR1. These results indicate that the presence of melatonin effectively protects the activity of photosynthetic system II in C. reinhardtii, enhances antioxidant activity, upregulates gene expression in the AsA-GSH cycle, and reduces the level of ROS, thereby alleviating the damage caused by Cd toxicity.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed in the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572665) and the Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Basic Research Program (2022JZ-15), Shannxi Provincial Department of Education Research Project (Key Laboratory Project) (18JS112).
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Fangbing Qi and Yingjuan Wang: methodology, validation, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing. Yu Gao and Jiaqi Liu: formal analysis and wring—review and editing. Yingjuan Wang: funding acquisition. Xiangyu Yao and Ziyi Wu: methodology, conceptualization, and wring—review and editing.
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Qi, F., Gao, Y., Liu, J. et al. Alleviation of cadmium-induced photoinhibition and oxidative stress by melatonin in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 78423–78437 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27561-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27561-6