Plant organic contamination poses a serious threat to the safety of agricultural products and human health worldwide, and the association of endophytic bacteria with host plants may decrease organic pollutants in planta. In this study, we firstly determined the growth response and biofilm formation of endophytic Pseudomonas sp. Ph6-gfp, and then systematically evaluated the performance of different plant colonization methods (seed soaking (SS), root soaking (RS), leaf painting (LP)) for circumventing the risk of plant phenanthrene (PHE) contamination. After inoculation for 48 h, strain Ph6-gfp grew efficiently with PHE, oxalic acid, or malic acid as the sole sources of carbon and energy. Moreover, strain Ph6-gfp could form robust biofilms in LB medium. In greenhouse hydroponic experiments, strain Ph6-gfp could actively colonize inoculated plants internally, and plants colonized with Ph6-gfp showed a higher capacity for PHE removal. Compared with the Ph6-gfp-free treatment, the accumulations of PHE in Ph6-gfp-colonized plants via SS, RS, and LP were 20.1, 33.1, and 7.1 %, respectively, lower. Our results indicate that inoculating plants with Ph6-gfp could lower the risk of plant PHE contamination. RS was most efficient for improving PHE removal in whole plant bodies by increasing the cell numbers of Ph6-gfp in plant roots. The findings in this study provide an optimized method to strain Ph6-gfp reduce plant PAH residues, which may be applied to agricultural production in PAH-contaminated soil.

Toxic Microcystis species are the main bloom-forming cyanobacteria in freshwaters. It is imperative to develop efficient techniques to control these notorious harmful algal blooms (HABs). Here, we present a simple, efficient, and environmentally safe algicidal way to control Microcystis blooms, by using intermediate carboxylic acids from the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. The citric acid, alpha-ketoglutaric acid, succinic acid, fumaric acid, and malic acid all exhibited strong algicidal effects, and particularly succinic acid could cause the rapid lysis of Microcystis in a few hours. It is revealed that the Microcystis-lysing activity of succinic acid and other carboxylic acids was due to their strong acidic activity. Interestingly, the acid-lysed Microcystis cells released large amounts of phycocyanin, about 27-fold higher than those of the control. On the other hand, the transcription of mcyA and mcyD of the microcystin biosynthesis operon was not upregulated by addition of alpha-ketoglutaric acid and other carboxylic acids. Consider the environmental safety of intermediate carboxylic acids. We propose that administration of TCA cycle organic acids may not only provide an algicidal method with high efficiency and environmental safety but also serve as an applicable way to produce and extract phycocyanin from cyanobacterial biomass.