Enteromorpha compressa (L.) Greville an edible green alga as a source of antiallergic principle (S)

Structures and Anti-Allergic Activities of Natural Products from Marine Organisms

In recent years, allergic diseases have occurred frequently, affecting more than 20% of the global population. The current first-line treatment of anti-allergic drugs mainly includes topical corticosteroids, as well as adjuvant treatment of antihistamine drugs, which have adverse side effects and drug resistance after long-term use. Therefore, it is essential to find alternative anti-allergic agents from natural products. High pressure, low temperature, and low/lack of light lead to highly functionalized and diverse functional natural products in the marine environment. This review summarizes the information on anti-allergic secondary metabolites with a variety of chemical structures such as polyphenols, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, and peptides, obtained mainly from fungi, bacteria, macroalgae, sponges, mollusks, and fish. Molecular docking simulation is applied by MOE to further reveal the potential mechanism for some representative marine anti-allergic natural products to target the H1 receptor. This review may not only provide insight into information about the structures and anti-allergic activities of natural products from marine organisms but also provides a valuable reference for marine natural products with immunomodulatory activities.

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.

The new application of biosorption properties of Enteromorpha prolifera

The main goal of this paper was to elaborate the possibility of industrial application of biosorption properties of Enteromorpha prolifera (production of mineral feed additives for livestock). In this study, biosorption process was used in the binding of chromium(III) ions from aqueous solution by the green macroalga. The kinetics of biosorption process was studied in a batch system with respect to the initial pH, temperature, initial metal ion concentration, and initial biomass concentration. E. prolifera demonstrated good biosorption properties. The equilibrium biosorption capacity increased with pH and with initial concentration of metal ions. The uptake of chromium(III) ions by the dried alga was affected by the temperature, but in small extent. With increase of the biomass concentration, the decrease of biosorption capacity at equilibrium was observed. The best biosorption conditions were determined as the initial pH 5, temperature 25 degrees Celsius, the initial chromium(III) ions concentration 400 mg/L, and biosorbent concentration 1.0 g/L. Biosorption capacity at equilibrium reached at these conditions was 100 mg/g. The mechanism of the biosorption of chromium(III) ions by E. prolifera was analyzed in equilibrium experiments. Equilibrium data were fitted to Langmuir, Dubinin-Radushkevich, and Freundlich adsorption isotherms. The most suitable model for describing the obtained data was Langmuir model. The experimental results and the analysis of the solution before and after biosorption process suggested ion-exchange mechanism.