Mitigation of Marine Dinoflagellates Using Hydrogen Peroxide (HO) Increases Toxicity towards Epithelial Gill Cells.

Hydrogen peroxide (HO) has been shown to efficiently remove toxic microalgae from enclosed ballast waters and brackish lakes. In this study, in vitro experiments were conducted to assess the side effects of mitigating toxic and non-toxic dinoflagellates with HO. Five HO concentrations (50 to 1000 ppm) were used to control the cell abundances of the toxic dinoflagellates and and the non-toxic dinoflagellates and Photosynthetic efficiency and staining dye measurements showed the high efficiency of HO for mitigating all dinoflagellate species at only 50 ppm. In a bioassay carried out to test cytotoxicity using the cell line RTgill-W1, control experiments (only HO) showed cytotoxicity in a concentration- and time- (0 to 24 h) dependent manner. The toxic dinoflagellates, especially , showed basal cytotoxicity that increased with the application of hydrogen peroxide. Unexpectedly, the application of a low HO concentration increased toxicity, even when mitigating non-toxic dinoflagellates. This study suggests that the fatty acid composition of toxic and non-toxic dinoflagellate species can yield toxic aldehyde cocktails after lipoperoxidation with HO that can persist in water for days with different half-lives. Further studies are needed to understand the role of lipoperoxidation products as acute mediators of disease and death in aquatic environments.