Romanian Journal of Biology - Plant Biology

ROMANIAN ACADEMY
Institute of Biology -Bucharest



MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF TOXIC CYANOBACTERIA ISOLATED FROM TUSHAN LAKE, IRAN BASED ON STRR, MCY, RPOC1, AND RBCL GENES

BAHAREH NOWRUZI, HASSAN BEIRANVAND





 Abstract:


   Tushan Lake (Iran) is not only a popular public recreational site, especially for children during the warmer seasons, but due to its shallow depth, it has also become a place for swimming. Local reports of adverse effects following swimming in the lake - such as itching and skin blistering - among individuals exposed to the water in this area suggest the possible presence of cyanotoxins. Accordingly, this study aimed to screen for potentially toxigenic cyanobacterial strains in the Tushan Lake, Gorgan, by amplifying functional and structural genes along with palindromic sequences. Cluster analysis based on the amplification of the STRR gene in four cyanobacterial colonies revealed that colonies 1 and 3 shared 90% similarity. Colony 4, with 80% similarity, was grouped in the same clade with colonies 1 and 3. However, colony 2 was located in the most distant clade and exhibited the lowest similarity to the other samples. Therefore, all subsequent analyses - including the identification of pathogenic, structural and functional genes - were exclusively conducted on colony 2. Amplification results of mcy genes showed that only the mcyG gene was present in the strain under study. Phylogenetic tree construction based on the 16S rRNA gene demonstrated congruence with trees derived from mcyG, rbcL and rpoC1 genes, placing the studied strain within the same clade as Calothrix sp. PCC_7715 with a bootstrap value of 71.8%. Analysis of the ITS region length and its structural motifs, including the D1-D1′ helix and BOX B region, in comparison with closely related strains from the phylogenetic tree, indicated distinct differences in both length and secondary structure. This study represents one of the first molecular phylogenetic investigations of toxic cyanobacteria in Tushan Lake, Gorgan.




 Citation:


   BAHAREH NOWRUZI, HASSAN BEIRANVAND, 2025. MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF TOXIC CYANOBACTERIA ISOLATED FROM TUSHAN LAKE, IRAN BASED ON STRR, MCY, RPOC1, AND RBCL GENES, Romanian Journal of Biology - Plant Biology, 70(1-2): 43–66. DOI: DOI: 10.59277/RJB-PB.2025.1-2.04.




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