Antioxidative activities of low molecular fucoidans from kelp laminaria japonica

Seaweed and seaweed-derived metabolites as prebiotics

Seaweeds and their bioactive compounds, particularly polysaccharides and phenolics can be regarded as great dietary supplements with gut health benefits and prebiotics. These components are resistant to digestion by enzymes present in the human gastrointestinal tract, also selectively stimulate the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and the production of fermentation products such as short chain fatty acids. Commonly, the health benefits of seaweed components are assessed by including them in an in vitro anaerobic fermentation system containing human fecal inocula that mimics the environment of the human large bowel. Regarding to the complex interactions between dietary components, gastrointestinal physiological processes, and gut microbiota are difficult to model in vitro. Consequently it is important to follow up the promising in vitro results with in vivo animal or human testing. The aim of this chapter is to have a comprehensive review on the application of seaweeds and seaweed-derived metabolites as prebiotics, and understand the trends, gaps and future directions of both scientific and industrial developments. This work contributes to develop and expand new platform of seaweed utilization for higher-value products, particularly to functional food and nutraceutical industries in order to serve the social demand for health awareness and support economic development.

Current Trends on Seaweeds: Looking at Chemical Composition, Phytopharmacology, and Cosmetic Applications

Seaweeds have received huge interest in recent years given their promising potentialities. Their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, hypolipemic, and anticoagulant effects are among the most renowned and studied bioactivities so far, and these effects have been increasingly associated with their content and richness in both primary and secondary metabolites. Although primary metabolites have a pivotal importance such as their content in polysaccharides (fucoidans, agars, carragenans, ulvans, alginates, and laminarin), recent data have shown that the content in some secondary metabolites largely determines the effective bioactive potential of seaweeds. Among these secondary metabolites, phenolic compounds feature prominently. The present review provides the most remarkable insights into seaweed research, specifically addressing its chemical composition, phytopharmacology, and cosmetic applications.

Brown seaweed (AquaArom) supplementation increases food intake and improves growth, antioxidant status and resistance to temperature stress in Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar

Seaweeds represent a vast resource that remains underutilized as an ingredient in aquafeeds. Here we probed the effect of addition of AquaArom, a seaweed meal derived from brown seaweeds (Laminaria sp., kelp), to fish feed on growth performance, antioxidant capacity and temperature responsiveness of mitochondrial respiration. A commercial salmonid feed was mixed with 0 (control), 3, 6 and 10% seaweed and fed to Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts for 30 days. The smolts consumed more of the seaweed-supplemented food relative to the control and there were no mortalities. Compared with the control, the final fish weight, standard length, weight gain and SGR were higher in fish fed diets supplemented with the 3 and 10% seaweed, while growth performance for fish maintained on 6% seaweed remained neutral. Importantly, seaweed supplementation increased protein efficiency ratio (PER) and tended to improve food conversion ratio (FCR). Although the hepatosomatic and visceral indices did not change, whole gut and intestinal weights and lengths were higher in fish maintained on seaweed-supplemented diets suggesting increased retention time and a larger surface area for food digestion and nutrient absorption. Measurement of antioxidant status revealed that seaweed supplementation dose-dependently increased plasma total antioxidant capacity as well as the level of glutathione, and activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase in liver mitochondria. Moreover, seaweed supplementation reduced the effect of acute temperature rise on mitochondrial respiration and proton leak. Overall, these data suggest that AquaArom can be mixed with fish food up to 10% to increase food consumption and enhance growth performance, as well as to improve antioxidant capacity and alleviate adverse effects of stressors such as temperature in fish.

Marine polysaccharides from algae with potential biomedical applications

There is a current tendency towards bioactive natural products with applications in various industries, such as pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetics and food. This has put some emphasis in research on marine organisms, including macroalgae and microalgae, among others. Polysaccharides with marine origin constitute one type of these biochemical compounds that have already proved to have several important properties, such as anticoagulant and/or antithrombotic, immunomodulatory ability, antitumor and cancer preventive, antilipidaemic and hypoglycaemic, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, making them promising bioactive products and biomaterials with a wide range of applications. Their properties are mainly due to their structure and physicochemical characteristics, which depend on the organism they are produced by. In the biomedical field, the polysaccharides from algae can be used in controlled drug delivery, wound management, and regenerative medicine. This review will focus on the biomedical applications of marine polysaccharides from algae.

Brown seaweed fucoidan: biological activity and apoptosis, growth signaling mechanism in cancer

Seaweeds, being abundant sources of bioactive components have much interest in recent times. The complex polysaccharides from the brown, red and green seaweeds possess broad spectrum therapeutic properties. The sulfated polysaccharides are routinely used in biomedical research and have known biological activities. Fucoidan, a fucose-rich polysaccharide extracted from brown seaweed has various biological functions including anticancer effects. Cellular damage induces growth arrest and tumor suppression by inducing apoptosis, the mechanism of cell death depends on the magnitude of DNA damage following exposure to anticancer agents. Apoptosis is mainly regulated by cell growth signaling molecules. Number of research studies evidenced that fucoidan shown to induce cytotoxicity of various cancer cells, induces apoptosis, and inhibits invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis of cancer cells. There are few articles discussing on fucoidan biological activity but no specific review on cancer and its signaling mechanism. Hence, this review discusses the brown seaweed fucoidan structure and some biological function and role in apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis and growth signal mechanism on cancer.

Antioxidant effects of fermented sea tangle (Laminaria japonica) by Lactobacillus brevis BJ20 in individuals with high level of γ-GT: A randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled clinical study

A randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled clinical study was performed to evaluate the antioxidant effects of fermented sea tangle (FST) on healthy volunteers with high levels of γ-glutamyltransferse (γ-GT). Forty-eight participants were divided into a placebo group and an FST group that received FST (1.5 g/day) for 4 weeks. Serum γ-GT, malondialdehyde (MDA), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities were determined before and after the trial. Administering FST significantly decreased serum levels of γ-GT and MDA. Additionally, SOD and CAT activities were significantly augmented compared to those in the placebo group after 4 weeks, but no significant alteration was observed in GPx activity compared to that in the placebo group. Our findings indicate that FST enhanced the antioxidant defense system in a healthy population and may be useful as a functional food ingredient.

Evaluation and comparison of the antioxidative potency of various carbohydrates using different methods

A detailed analysis of the antioxidative activity of 12 carbohydrates including chondroitin sulfate, fucoidan, agaro-oligosaccharide, 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose (DOI), Galbeta1-4DOI, D-glucuronic acid, chitobiose, D-mannosamine, D-galactosamine, D-glucosamine, heparin, and colominic acid was performed using four established methods: 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity assay, and the deoxyribose method. Ascorbic acid and/or catechin were used as positive standards. In the DPPH radical scavenging activity measurements, fucoidan, DOI, and Galbeta1-4DOI showed remarkable levels of activity, although at lower levels than ascorbic acid. The SOD assay revealed that DOI, Galbeta1-4DOI, and agaro-oligosaccharide had high antioxidant activity, with DOI and Galbeta1-4DOI notably showing almost half of the antioxidative potency of ascorbic acid. Using the deoxyribose method, chitobiose and heparin showed the highest hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, followed by chondroitin sulfate, colominic acid, Galbeta1-4DOI, and d-glucosamine. Given that 11 of the carbohydrates analyzed share a common structure, agaro-oligosaccharide being the exception, we propose from our current results that at least one amino, carboxyl, carbonyl, or sulfonyl group is required, but is not in itself sufficient, for carbohydrates to function as antioxidants.