Marine algae fucoidan

Other anti-HSV sulphated PS included sulphated galactans from the marine alga Bostrychia montagnei [89], the red seaweed Pterocladia capillacea [90], extracts of Cryptopleura ramosa and Nothogenia fastigiata, two red seaweeds from the South American coast [91,92], and fucoidans from the brown seaweed utricularis [93]. 

Marine algae are potentially prolific sources of highly bioactive components that might represent useful leads in the development of new pharmaceutical agents and functional foods. This chapter discusses the current literature on biological activities of sulfated polysaccharides, fucoidans, from brown seaweeds. The profound functional properties of fucoidans could be employed in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical functional food, and cosmeceutical... 

In the field of pharmacology, the biologically active polysaccharides (PSs) that are derived from natural sources have attained a special place for the development of drug lead molecules. Marine macroalgae contain a significant amount of soluble PSs and have potential function as dietary fiber. Specially, brown marine algae are known to produce fimctional PSs such as alginates and fucoidans. Seaweed-derived PSs have been... 

FIGURE 16.1 Monomeric units of marine-algae derived SPs (A) fucoidan, (B) carrageenan, and (C) ulvan. 

Moreover, fucoidan is a fucan sulfate occurring in brown marine algae. Shibata et ah studied the inhibitory effect of Cladosiphon fucoidan on H. pylori adhesion to human stomach (Shibata et ah, 1999). Their researches proved that fucoidan inhibited bacterial binding to human gastric cell. It was also shown that this fucoidan blocks both Leb- and sulfatide-mediated attachment of H. pylori to gastric cells. 

SPs not only function as dietary fiber, but they also contribute to the antioxidant activity of marine algae. It has been demonstrated that SPs have potential antioxidant activity and various classes of SPs including fucoidan, laminaran, and alginic acid have been shown as potent antioxidants (Rocha de Souza et ah, 2007 Ruperez et ah, 2002 Wang et ah, 2008). Antioxidant activity of SPs have been determined by various methods such as l,l-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazil (DPPH) radical scavenging, lipid peroxidation inhibition, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), nitric... 

The synthesized fucoidans polysaccharides isolated from marine algae C. okamuranus and K. crassifolia and used for synthesis of AgNPs were reported by Soisuwan et al. (2010). The synthesized AgNPs were characterized for surface plasmon resonance, size, and morphological studies. The results suggest that the SPR band was at 527—530 nm and was spherical in shape with average size of 8-10 nm. 

Fucoidans, 2 (Figure 2) a unique class of sulfated fucans obtained from several algae or marine invertebrates including sea cucumber [36] and sea urchin [37, 38]. They essentially contain fucose and sulfate, with small proportions of galactose, xylose, mannose and uronic acids. Normally, the sulfate groups are linked to the 4-position of fucose residues [39, 40]... 

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