Toxicity of the cyanobacterium Nodularia spumigena Mertens

The bloom forming cyanobacterium (blue-green alga) Nodularia spumigena produced a peptide hepatotoxin with an LD50 of 70 micrograms/kg i.p. in mice. The livers of lethally poisoned mice were haemorrhagic and enlarged, the weight doubling to about 10% of total body weight. Histologically there was centrilobular to midzonal disruption and lysis of hepatocytes resulting in haemorrhage and formation of blood lakes. Death occurred approximately 1 hr after i.p. injection. By 30 min significant increases had occurred in the plasma levels of lactate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase and glucose paralleling degeneration and necrosis of centrilobular hepatocytes. In vitro the toxin caused rapid dose-dependent deformation of freshly isolated rat hepatocytes, which was accompanied by the activation of phosphorylase a; 125 ng/ml of toxin being sufficient to cause these changes in 10(6) cells. This work demonstrates that, both in vivo and in vitro, Nodularia toxin shares many similarities in its action to the well characterized peptide toxins of another cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa.