To evaluate the impact of these antioxidants, E. huxleyi algae were cultured both axenically and in co-culture with P. inhibens bacteria, and algal survival was monitored (Fig. 2).
Very cool and interesting findings! The selectivity of selenium protection is striking - it's fascinating that only selenium prevented algal death while ascorbate, DMSP, and α-tocopherol were all ineffective. I noticed there's quite a concentration disparity in the screen: selenium at 10 nM versus the others at 20 μM. This actually makes selenium's effectiveness even more remarkable, but do you think it would still be effective at 20 µM concentrations? or would there be diminishing returns and increased toxicity? It would be interesting to see dose-response curves for each antioxidant to confirm whether this represents true mechanistic selectivity versus concentration optimization differences. Also intriguing that selenium protects against ROS in axenic cultures too - suggesting it strengthens the algae's intrinsic antioxidant capacity independent of bacterial stress. Do you think there selenium would protect against chemically induced ROS? and given the naturally occuring ROS developed as the culture ages, do you think selenium supplementation would increase the lifespan of a culture of E. huxleyi before crashing out?
Very cool work and a really neat finding! Thanks for sharing!