Plants

Discovery of Cancer Fighting Chemical in Blue-Green Algae

This was the headline in "The Honoloulou Adviser" February 9th, 1996. Edwin Tanji reported that researchers Richard Moore and Gregory Patterson had found that a naturally occuring chemical in Blue-green algae was a very effective inhibiting agent of tumor growth.

Cryptophycin was the chemical and one of several "very powerful chemicals" that were contained in the pond scum. Work is now underway to produce it synthetically in a form for testing on humans, hopefully within two years. This is under a contract drawn out by Eli Lily and Co. The findings were further endorsed by research at Wayne State University which showed that cryptophycin "will inhibit cancer cells but have less effect on normal cells". This report came to me from an article in "The Water Garden Journal" Summmer 96 - the journal for the International Water Lily Society. In it Jack Honeycutt of the IWLS adds that blue-green algae is being used by AIDS patients and sufferers, either as a cure or to treatment for Aids. The information was available on the internet.

Here is the Wikepedia insert on Crytophycin:
“Definition- Cryptophycin is a potent cytotoxin produced by cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc. It is also a promising drug in many cancer therapies.
Mode of Operation- Cryptophycin works by attacking the tubulin microfilaments found in eukaryotic cells and thereby preventing cell division and reproduction. The main hypothesis as to why the blue-green algae produce this energetically expensive compound is that it is used as a strong anti-fungal agent in order to prevent fungus or other types of algae from competing with the blue-green algae for nutrients and sunlight. This is necessary because the algae have no means of physically evading organisms that would settle on them or above them and block the sunlight that they need in order to photosynthesize. It has been found that the amount of cryptophycin being produced by any one alga at any given time depends on the current environmental conditions. The compound must be able to distinguish between destroying those microtubules that are foreign and its own cells so it has evolved to recognize cells which are proliferating too quickly to be its own cells by an as yet unknown mechanism. This property of cryptophycin allows it to recognize cancerous tumor cells, even those of “solid tumors” such as those in brain, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreas, lung and breast cancers and it can destroy the cells of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tumors. These are the cancers that chemotherapy has the least ability to treat and account for eighty-five percent of all cancer deaths in the United States (Back, 2005).”

January 1954....Scientist researching for the U.S. Department for the interior reported that algae in contact with submerged concrete blocks caused their complete disintegration.

At one point the safety of the Manhattan bridge in New York was in jeopardy as engineers were being confounded bywhat was causing the disintegration of the foundations. It was algae.

Algae is a term that covers a vast range of relatively simple plants. They come as a single cell, a colony of cells in a filament, tube, strand or within a membrane. They are plants since they have chlorophyll within their cell structure. In the presence of carbon dioxide and, absolutely essentially, sunlight a process of photosynthesis is activated producing starch and related substances. Given phosphorus, nitrogen and someDifferent sorts of freshwater pollution algae other substances they can also build up proteins. During this process carbon dioxide is absorbed and oxygen is released.

All plants and animals 'respire'; that is absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. During the action of
Photosynthesis in plants, the production of oxygen exceeds by far the normal respiration of the organism. Algae as plants also naturally produce oxygen in sunlight. This oxygen is utilised by all the other inhabitants of the environment. In the pond environment, aerobic bacteria are the first in the chain of living things to utilise oxygen. They use it to process decaying organic matter back into compounds that are accessible for nutrition by plant life and are not toxic and non-polluting non-polluting to fish and even to man. It is estimated that the algae that lives in the sea provides 90% of the oxygen for the planet.

This alone makes algae one of the keystones to the existence of life on earth. Combine this with the essential role within the food chain of life in water we will see that the presence of algae is an essential ingredient to every water world from ocean to puddle, and as it happens, even every polluted ditch to everysceptic lagoon.

Photosynthesis allows plants to produce material such as the starches and oils from the inorganic elements in the environment to build the structure for the cell walls of the plant. Animals cannot do this but need carbohydrate for their own cell growth and structure. If were a very, very small animal then the basic ingredients of your larder will be algae, algae and more algae and you in turn will be meat for a larger animal.

Our usual mental pictures of algae are through the problems they cause. We only 'see' them when they 'bloom'. At various times of year and during certain conditions different species thrive to such an extent that they discolour water, usually green, or float in mats on the surface of the water in jelly like blobs or like green soggy candy floss. These are indicative of very particular conditions in that environment to cause that effect and it when they are causing a problem. But like a headache, algae growth is generally a symptom of some other underlying cause.

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT COLOUR TO WATER LILIES AND SO ADDED THE WORD ‘GARDEN’ TO ‘WATER GARDEN’

One of the most influential people in England on Victorian gardening style and horticulture was William Robinson who, as prolific writer and founder editor of The Garden magazine, was never short a of comment, oftenNympaea xmarliacea 'Chromatella', Marliac's first colourful creation rude, in respect to the endeavours of his contemporaries. His influence still greatly affects how we garden today, especially when it comes to creating informal and ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ gardens. As to the subject of water in the garden, the topic seemed like a short fuse to fire up his irascible nature, in fact it was enough to make him most vehemently declare in 1883 in the first edition of his book “The English Flower Garden”:
“Unclean and ugly ponds deface our gardens; some have a mania for artificial water, the effect of water…… pleasing them so well that they bring it near their houses, where they cannot have any of its good effects. But have instead the filth that gathers in stagnant water, and its evil smell on many a lawn.”
I have the eighth edition of The English Flower Garden and in it we find Robinson dedicating a whole chapter to water in the garden and although he is slightly disparaging about plants that grow around the fringes and their propensity to get out of hand, he declares; “With a little thought…..there are so many charming opportunities for water garden pictures.”
There is no doubt what has caused his turn about in attitude because the cause seems constantly in the back of his mind:
“Gradually, however, the aquatics are coming to the front, and an altogether fresh impetus, as well as a great one, has resulted from the introduction of the many charming new hybrid Nymphaeas which are fast making their appearance in some of the best-known gardens.” It was new vareities of water lilies when previously there had only been a single hardy white variety that could survive in European ponds and this was more adept at making foliage than flower. This is the story of the man that created those lilies that were enough to shake the earth beneath stuffy plantsmen like Robinson and make them look long and hard at water gardens again.

This Directory will gradually be updated with more and better pictures and more as they come.

If you have a common plant name in your mind and do not know the Latin plant name, if you click here it will take you to the Federation of British Aquatic Societies plant names page. Look up the Latin name there and come back.