Rice fields of Meghalaya especially in the coal mining belt receive water contaminated by effluents from mines that are known to carry harmful heavy metal ions such as Cu, Fe, Zn, Ni, Cd, As, Pb, Cr, etc. Cd exposure was analyzed in the cyanobacterium Nostoc muscorum Meg 1 isolated from a contaminated rice field in Sohra, Meghalaya, India. Toxicity study established 0.5 ppm on day 3 to be the L...

Planktonic samples were collected from two habitats in Giza Governorate, Kafr Hakem (+ snails) and Sadek canals (snails). Oscillatoria accuminata and Lyngbya perelegans were collected from the first location, while Phormidium valderianum, Spirogyra sp and Lyngbya perelegans were separated from the second one. Nostoc muscorum was obtained from Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (TBRI) and used i...

We describe and discuss an evolutionary tree derived from data which were obtained using monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies (see e.g. Köhler and Milstein, N ature 256, 495 (1975)) were prepared against 5-aminolevulinate dehydratase (ALAD) from spinach (Spinacia oleracea) and enabled us to study 13 different ALAD antigenic determinant characters from origins as diverse as algae, mosses...

The phycobiliprotein phycoerythrin was localized in symbiotic and free-living Nostoc of the cycad Cycas using immunocytochemistry. In symbiotic Nostoc, phycoerythrin was associated with the thylakoid membranes of vegetative cells and absent from heterocysts. Similar cellular/subcellular localization was observed between symbiotic Nostoc and the free-living Cycas isolate Nostoc 7422.

The diversity of the endophytic Nostoc symbionts of two thalloid bryophytes, the hornwort Anthoceros fusiformis and the liverwort Blasia pusilla, was examined using the tRNA(Leu) (UAA) intron sequence as a marker. The results confirmed that many different Nostoc strains are involved in both associations under natural conditions in the field. The level of Nostoc diversity within individual bryop...

In the present study, three algal species (Spirulina platensis, Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Nostoc muscorum (ATCC 2789) were used to investigate their antimicrobial and antioxidant properties against some human pathogenic bacteria and fungi (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Micrococcus luteus and fungus Aspergillus luchuensi...

The present study reports on chromium (VI) tolerance of two cyanobacterial strains Nostoc linckia and Nostoc spongiaeforme isolated from salt affected soils using uni-algal and bi-algal systems. Besides distinct halophilism, the two strains exhibited remarkable tolerance to chromium (VI) and revealed 1.2 to 2.8 times more chlorophyll in the presence of the metal. While phycobilins and carotenoi...

Competition among four symbiotically competent Nostoc strains, colonizing rice roots, was examined using hetR-DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) as strain identification. Although mixed in various combinations, only one strain at a time associated with the rice roots. Nostoc strain 8964:3 was the most competitive and our data suggest that its competitive fitness was dependent on rap...