Optimization of liquid media and biosafety assessment for algae-lysing bacterium NP23

To control algal bloom caused by nutrient pollution, a wild-type algae-lysing bacterium was isolated from the Baiguishan reservoir in Henan province of China and identified as Enterobacter sp. strain NP23. Algal culture medium was optimized by applying a Placket-Burman design to obtain a high cell concentration of NP23. Three minerals (i.e., 0.6% KNO3, 0.001% MnSO4·H2O, and 0.3% K2HPO4) were found to be independent factors critical for obtaining the highest cell concentration of 10(13) CFU/mL, which was 10(4) times that of the control. In the algae-lysing experiment, the strain exhibited a high lysis rate for the 4 algae test species, namely, Chlorella vulgari, Scenedesmus, Microcystis wesenbergii, and Chlorella pyrenoidosa. Acute toxicity and mutagenicity tests showed that the bacterium NP23 had no toxic and mutagenic effects on fish, even in large doses such as 10(7) or 10(9) CFU/mL. Thus, Enterobacter sp. strain NP23 has strong potential application in the microbial algae-lysing project.