Development of Genus-Specific PCR Primers for Molecular Monitoring of Invasive Nostocalean Cyanobacteria

In-Soo Kim, Hae-Kyung Park and Yong-Jin Kim
Additional contact information
In-Soo Kim: Nakdong River Environment Research Center, National Institute of Environmental Research, Daegu 43008, Korea
Hae-Kyung Park: Nakdong River Environment Research Center, National Institute of Environmental Research, Daegu 43008, Korea
Yong-Jin Kim: Nakdong River Environment Research Center, National Institute of Environmental Research, Daegu 43008, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: The geographical range of invasive cyanobacteria with high toxigenic potential is widening because of eutrophication and global warming, thus, monitoring their appearance is necessary for safe water quality control. Most invasive cyanobacteria are nostocalean species, and their accurate identification by classical morphological methods may be problematic. In this study, we developed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers to selectively identify five invasive cyanobacterial genera, namely, Chrysosporum , Cuspidothrix , Cylindrospermopsis , Raphidiopsis , and Sphaerospermopsis , using genetic markers such as rbcLX , rpoB , rpoC1 , and cpcBA , and determined the amplification conditions for each pair of primers. The primer performances were verified on single or mixed nostocalean cyanobacterial isolates. The five primers allowed selective identification of all the target genera. In field samples collected during summer, when cyanobacteria flourished in the Nakdong River, the respective PCR product was observed in all samples where the target genus was detected by microscopic analysis. Besides, weak bands corresponding to Sphaerospermopsis and Raphidiopsis were observed in some samples in which these genera were not detected by microscopy, suggesting that the cell densities were below the detection limit of the microscopic method used. Thus, the genus-specific primers developed in this study enable molecular monitoring to supplement the current microscopy-based monitoring.

Keywords: invasive nostocalean cyanobacteria; Cuspidothrix; Sphaerospermopsis; Cylindrospermopsis; Raphidiopsis; Chrysosporum; genus-specific PCR primers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5703/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5703/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:11:p:5703-:d:562543

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().