Influence of environmental stress on lipofuscin production

Abstract The Corollospora maritima , a marine ascomycete, has been used as an experimental model to investigate the possibility that age pigments can be considered indicators also of environmental stress. Synthetic sea water enriched with iron or copper has been inoculated in a broth culture of the fungus. After 5 days of incubation the mycetes were assayed for lipofuscin fluorescent pigment and malondialdehyde content. The presence in the culture medium of the heavy metal ions results in an increase of the lipofuscin and malondialdehyde production. The same evidence has been obtained with sea water samples collected at seven sites along the coast of the Gulf of Naples (Italy): the lipofuscin and malondialdehyde production increases proportionally with the copper and iron pollution in the sea water.