Water binding in sub-aerial cyanobacteria

The role of water in the maintenance of structural and functional integrity of the cell at different hydration levels has been a subject of wide understanding. Water sorption isotherms, dielectrics and IR spectroscopic techniques were used to estimate the strength of water binding and number of binding sites using D'Arcy/Watt equation on the two well reported desiccation-tolerant cyanobacteria-Scytonema geitleri and Lyngbya arboricola. The observations made with water sorption isotherms, dielectrics and IR spectroscopic techniques clearly indicate three water binding regions. Grown mats of both the cyanobacteria showed high number of water binding sites onto strong binding region compared to their dry counterparts.