Abstract: In recent years, toxic metabolites produced by pollution of cyanobacterial blooms pose a serious threat to aquatic ecosystem and human health. Biodegradation technologies especially biological filtration have been widely used to remove algal toxins due to low cost of operation and maintenance with no potentially harmful by-products. However, there is little information gathered with respect to the effectiveness of biological treatment for all kinds of cyanobacterical toxins. It is especially important due to multiple kinds of cyanobacterical toxins been detected simultaneously in water sources. In this paper, the research progress published to date on the biodegradation of cyanobacterial toxins in water is reviewed, and the factors which have impact on the biodegradation of these toxins are analysed. Moreover, this article also offers insights into how biological treatment options can be applied to get optimum effect of removing cyanobacterial toxins, in particular through biological filtration process. This research is aimed at providing a theoretical guidance for the application of biodegradation technologies to remove cyanobacterial toxins.

Key words: cyanobacterial toxin, biodegradation, influence factor, biodegradation technology, algal bloom pollution