Evaluation of the molecular phylog eny and evogenomics of freshwater toxic heterocystous cyanobacterium of the genus Anabae na sp. from Lavasan Lake

Cyanobacteria may produce variety of the natural products, including toxins that caus e severe health problems or even death in the humans and the other animals. Poisoning is c aused by drinking due to the ingestion of water contaminated with cyanobacteria toxins. However, little is known about cyanobacteria toxins fr om Lavasan Lake, this finding prompted us to s tudy the toxic compounds from four cyanoba cterial strains of the Anabaena sp. These strains were investigated with molecular methods, LC-MS and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Th e results of the molecular analyses demonstrat ed that only strain B3 contains the toxin-producing anaC gene. Results of molecular analysis demonstrated that the strain B3 contains the an aC gene. Also, the result of ion chromatograms and MS2 fragmentation patterns showed that wh ile there was only one potent neurotoxin compound (homoanatoxin), there were no signs of the presence of microcystin or hassalidin. Phylogen etic analyses suggest that the ability to produce this toxin has been lost repeatedly in the more d erived Anabaena sp. lineages. This is the first report of a toxin-producing cyanobacterium isolated from the territory of Iran