Short-term effect of cadmium on the motility of three flagellated algal species
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Short-term effect of cadmium on the motility of three flagellated algal species Nives Novosel 1 & Damir Kasum 1 & Petar Žutinić 2 & Tarzan Legović 1,3,4 & Nadica Ivošević DeNardis 1 Received: 10 July 2020 / Revised and accepted: 23 September 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The present work aims to develop a fast and reliable procedure for motility analysis of a short-term effect of heavy metal cadmium on the algal cell response in laboratory conditions. Three unicellular motile species similar in cell length, while differing in the cell wall and the flagellar system are used as model algae. We quantitatively characterise motility in terms of swimming speed and search radius following addition of 1 mg Cd L−1. Both swimming speed and search radius determined in control algal cultures reflect morphological features of the corresponding flagellated system. After 1 h of cell exposure to a toxic concentration of cadmium, a statistically significant decrease in swimming speed is determined with predominant erratic cell movement on the spot in all examined cultures. After 3 h of cell exposure to cadmium, swimming speed in most of the examined cell cultures recovered close to the control value, indicating quick cell adaptation to elevated cadmium concentration. The results support the implementation of swimming speed and search radius as motility parameters for direct screening of cell physiological state, which is applicable to ecotoxicological studies providing insight into the mechanism of cell adaptation under stress, as well as a better understanding of the spatial distribution of algal cells in aquatic systems. Keywords Algae . Cadmium . Cell stress . Heavy metal . Motility . Dunaliella tertiolecta . Rhodomonas maculata . Tetraselmis suecica
Introduction Rapid screening of algal physiological state with a reliable and easy-to-use non-taxonomic cell parameters, such as motility, is of high interest in ecology and environmental risk assessment (Lavoie et al. 2012; Pandey et al. 2014; Coquillé et al. 2015; Pandey and Bergey 2016). Motility is a fundamental property that includes many highly attuned cellular functions that enable an organism to move in a coordinated fashion. Many microorganisms use different external chemical and physical factors to direct their search toward food or a suitable niche for survival and
* Tarzan Legović [email protected] * Nadica Ivošević DeNardis [email protected] 1
Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
2
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
3
Libertas International University, Zagreb, Croatia
4
OIKON - Institute for Appplied Ecology, Zagreb, Croatia
growth (Melkonian 1992). Stressed microalgae develop different mechanisms to cope with toxicity of heavy metals like cadmium, a prominent industrial pollutant in aquatic systems. Whether a metal will act toxic is related to the cell surface interaction and intracellular accumulation (Morlon et al. 2005). The exact mechanism of how cadmium interacts with the cell still needs to be r
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