Green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii can effectively remove diclofenac from the water environment-A new perspective on biotransformation

The use of unicellular algae to remove xenobiotics (including drugs) from wastewaters is one of the rapidly developing areas of environmental protection. Numerous data indicate that for efficient phycoremediation three processes are important, i.e. biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biotransformation. Although biosorption and bioaccumulation do not raise any serious doubts, biotransformation is more problematic since its products can be potentially more toxic than the parent compounds posing a threat to organisms living in a given environment, including organisms that made this transformation. Thus, two questions need to be answered before the proper algae strain is chosen for phycoremediation, namely what metabolites are produced during biotransformation, and how resistant is the analyzed strain to a mixture of parent compound and metabolites that appear over the course of culture? In this work, we evaluated the remediation potential of the model green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in relation to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), as exemplified by diclofenac. To achieve this, we analysed the susceptibility of C. reinhardtii to diclofenac as well as its capability to biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biotransformation of the drug. We have found that even at a relatively high concentration of diclofenac the algae maintained their vitality and were able to remove (37.7%) DCF from the environment. A wide range of phase I and II metabolites of diclofenac (38 transformation products) was discovered, with many of them characteristic rather for animal and bacterial biochemical pathways than for plant metabolism. Due to such a large number of detected products, 18 of which were not previously reported, the proposed scheme of diclofenac transformation by C. reinhardtii not only significantly contributes to broadening the knowledge in this field, but also allows to suggest possible pathways of degradation of xenobiotics with a similar structure. It is worth pointing out that a decrease in the level of diclofenac in the media observed in this study cannot be fully explained by biotransformation (8.4%). The mass balance analysis indicates that other processes (total 22%), such as biosorption, a non-extractable residue formation, or complete decomposition in metabolic cycles can be involved in the diclofenac disappearance, and those findings open the prospects of further research.

Automated summary

The use of unicellular algae for removing xenobiotics from wastewaters is a rapidly developing field in environmental protection. Efficient phycoremediation requires biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biotransformation. However, the potential toxicity of biotransformation products and the resistance of analyzed algae strains to the mixture of compounds need to be considered. In this study, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii showed promise in removing diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, through biosorption, bioaccumulation, and biotransformation processes.