Materials
Bacillus flexus SSZ01 strain was previously isolated from decayed cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic lake in Saudi Arabia. It was identified by 16S rRNA gene analysis and deposited in the Gene bank with an accession of GU112451 (Alamri 2012). The strain was found to degrade other cyanotoxins such as microcystin and cylindrospermopsin (Alamri 2012; Mohamed et al. 2022). STX was purchased from Abraxis (Warminster, PA, USA). The toxin was dissolved in a small volume of sterilized lake water, and the solution was diluted to give final concentrations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100μg L-1.
Bacterial degradation of saxitoxin
Strain SSZ01was re-cultured for 48 hours in liquid nutrient broth (NB) medium at 30°C while shaking (120 rpm). Bacterial pellets were collected by centrifugation (6000xg, 15 min, 4°C). The pellet was washed twice with sterile 0.02 M sodium phosphate buffer (pH=7.2), re-suspended in sterilized water to the required concentration of bacterial cells and assigned as viable bacteria. Another portion of pellets was heat-inactivated by boiling at 95 °C for 1h and centrifuged (6000xg, 15 min). The supernatant was discarded and non-viable bacteria were used for potential STX adsorption. Viable bacterial cells of strain SSZ01at a final concentration of 105 cfu ml-1 was inoculated into a 250-ml sterile conical flask containing 100 ml of filtered (0.2 µm) and autoclaved lake water (pH7) and different concentrations of STX (0.5, 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 μg L-1). These concentrations were chosen based on the range (1 –26 μg L-1) of environmentally relevant concentrations of extracellular STXs (Munoz et al. 2021; Li and Persson 2021). Flasks containing lake water and 100 µg L-1 STX without bacterial cells were used as control. Control and treated and flasks were incubated in a shaker (140 rpm) at 30°C. Subsamples (2ml) were aseptically taken from each flask at daily intervals for 10 days for toxin determination and bacterial growth. Bacterial growth was estimated as optical density (OD) at 600 nm wavelength. All experiments were performed in triplicate.
Effect of temperature and pH on STX biodegradation
To investigate the effect of temperature on STX degradation by strain SSZ01, bacterial cells were grown in lake water with 50µg L-1 STX and incubated at different temperatures (10, 20, 25 and 30ºC). The effect of pH on STX biodegradation was studied by cultivation of strain SSZ01in lake water with 50µg L-1 STX with different pH levels (6, 7, 8, 9 and10) adjusted by phosphate buffer (0.1M).
Saxitoxin analysis by ELISA
Concentrations of STX remaining in the cultures (i.e., not-degraded) during biodegradation experiments, were determined by centrifugation (6000xg, 10 min, 4ºC) of subsamples withdrawn from bacterial cultures at real time. STX concentrations were then directly determined in the supernatants using the STX ELISA kit (Abraxis, Warminster, PA, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The absorbance of the colorimetric product of antibody-conjugated enzymes was read at 450 nm on a Synergy™ hybrid multi-mode microplate reader (BioTek, USA). STX quantity was calculated from calibration curve of semi-log relationship between relative absorbance and toxin concentration using STX standard provided with ELISA kit. Each sample was run in duplicate for each assay. Detection limit for STX was 0.02 μg L-1. The STX biodegradation rate by strain SSZ01was estimated by dividing the initial STX concentration spiked into the bacterial cultures by the number of days until the toxin was no longer detected.
HPLC analysis of SXT and degradation products
SXT and potential degradation products were determined in bacterial culture supernatant using reverse phase HPLC with post-column derivatization and fluorescence detection according to the methods of Oshima (1995). A C8 column (150 mm × 4.6 mm) with a C8 guard cartridge was used for the analysis of all STX analogues (STXs, GTXs and C-toxins). The temperature for column oven was 40 °C for STX and 20 °C for GTXs and C-toxins. The flow rate was 0.8 mL/min with injection volume varying from 5 to 200 μL. The flow rate for post column reagents was 0.4 mL/min. The excitation and emission wavelengths were 330 nm and 390 nm, respectively. All samples were filtered through 0.45μm filters before analysis. Specifically, the mobile phase used for the analysis of STXs consisted of sodium heptane sulfonate (2 mM), diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate (25 mM, respectively) and 5% acetonitrile (pH 7.1 with phosphoric acid). For GTXs analysis, the mobile phase consisted of sodium heptane sulfonate (2 mM) and diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate (10 mM, pH 7.1 with phosphoric acid). The post column oxidant solution was 7 mM periodate in 50 mM diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate, adjusted to pH 7.8 with 5 M sodium hydroxide, and the post column acid solution was 0.5 M acetic acid. The oxidant solution was 7 mM periodate in 50 mM diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate (pH 7.8 with 5 M sodium hydroxide) and the acid solution was 0.5 M acetic acid. For the analysis of sulfocarbamoyl toxins C1 and C2, the mobile phase was tetrabutyl ammonium phosphate (1 mM, pH 6 with 1 M sodium hydroxide). The oxidant solution was 7 mM periodate in 50 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate (pH9 with 5 M sodium hydroxide) and the acid solution was 0.5 M acetic acid. Toxin standards including gonyautoxin 2 and 3 (GTX2, GTX3), gonyautoxin 5 (GTX5), decarbamoylsaxitoxin (dcSTX), and N-sulfocarbamoyl toxins (C1, C2), were purchased through local company from the Institute for Marine Bioscience, National Research Council, Canada
Artemia salina toxicity assay
The Artemia salina assay was conducted to test the toxicity of parent STX (i.e., STX standard without bacteria) and STX degradation byproducts obtained during biodegradation experiments. Potential toxicity of STX degradation byproducts was carried out for bacterial cultures showing complete degradation of STX (i.e., not-detectable by ELISA). The assay was performed using freshly hatched A. salina L nauplii according to Kiviranta et al. (1991) and Tokodi et al. (2018). The mortality was estimated after 48h and expressed as the difference (%) between mortalities in the tested and control samples following this formula-—%mortality = [(Test−Control)/(1−Control)] × 100. The lethal concentration causing death of 50% (LC50) with 95% confidence limits was calculated by the probit analysis method (Finney, 1971)
Statistical analysis
All experiments were performed in triplicate. Variations in STX biodegradation by strain SSZ01between different initial toxin concentrations, temperatures and pH levels were evaluated using one-way ANOVA (P< 0.05).