How Giant Algae Heal Cuts And Scrapes

Repairing damage is priority number one for the green alga Dasycladus vermicularis—it has only one cell, but that cell grows up to an inch long. Matthew Welling and Georg Pohnert of Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, in Germany, with Cliff Ross of the University of North Florida, have learned that a sulfur-containing coumarin is the linchpin of the mossy-looking marine dweller’s approach to forming fast-acting gelatinous plugs at injury sites (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., DOI: 10.1002/anie.201100908). The find could pave the way for synthetic adhesives that work under water. The team compared metabolites in intact and wounded algae and noticed that 6,7-dihydroxycoumarin-3-sulfate rapidly disappears in injured algae. Through an assay, the researchers chalked this phenomenon up to an enzyme that removes sulfate esters. They propose that the resulting product undergoes enzymatic oxidation, leading to radicals that react with amino acid side chains to create the cross-linked products that form a wound plug. Related single-celled algae, which can grow to meters in length, rely on terpenes to heal lesions, so the diversity of algae wound-healing chemistry is noteworthy, the team points out.