Effects of allelochemicals from Ficus microcarpa on Chlorella pyrenoidosa

Abstract

This study was performed in order to isolate and identify unknown allelochemicals from Ficus microcarpa, and to investigate the inhibitory to bloom-forming of green alga Chlorella pyrenoidosa. Through gradient elution, fraction C2, whose inhibition of alga growth in diverse extracts was the strongest was shown to cause significant reductions of maximum quantum yield, as well as electron transport rates of C. pyrenoidosa. The study data also showed that the increase of fraction C2 concentration decreased the activity of total superoxide dismutase (SOD), but increased the activities of catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) content. These results demonstrate that the active fraction C2 not only induced the photoinhibition or photodamage of PSII reaction centers, but also triggered the synthesis of reactive oxygen species which may change cell membrane penetrability, thereby leading to the eventual death of C. pyrenoidosa. Furthermore, the gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analyses showed that the most potential allelochemical in active fraction C2 was 2-Propyl phenol, which may exhibit potent allelopathy.