Abstract: Toxic cyanobacteria can form blooms in fresh, brackish, and marine waters, giving threats to water environment, and also, to human and animal health. Owing to its simple, fast, and economic advantages, molecular biotechnology has become the focus of concern in monitoring toxic cyanobacteria in water environment. This paper summarized the research progress in this field from the aspects of 1) monitoring toxic cyanobacteria by using traditional molecular biotechnology, 2) molecular detection according to the synthetase gene of cyanotoxin, and 3) detection of toxic cyanbacteria by using DNA microarray technology. Compared with conventional molecular biotechnology, the DNA microarray technology offers a rapid, economic, and high-throughout option for detecting toxic genotypes in complex samples, and thus, would bring a new revolution in detecting toxic cyanobacteria.

Key words: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus, Rhizosphere, Mycorrhizosphere, Phosphatase activities, Organic phosphorus