2016 April - 20 articles
The marine environment is home to a taxonomically diverse ecosystem. Organisms such as algae, molluscs, sponges, corals, and tunicates have evolved to survive the high concentrations of infectious and surface-fouling bacteria that are indigenous to o...
In recent years, a considerable number of structurally unique metabolites with biological and pharmacological activities have been isolated from the marine-derived fungi, such as polyketides, alkaloids, peptides, lactones, terpenoids and steroids. So...
This work describes a highly-sensitive and accurate approach for the determination of chitosan (CTS) using Naphthol Green B (NGB) as a probe in the Resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS) method. The interaction between CTS and NGB leads to notable enhan...
Considering that 70% of our planet’s surface is covered by oceans, it is likely that undiscovered biodiversity is still enormous. A large portion of marine biodiversity consists of microbiomes. They are very attractive targets of bioprospecting becau...
A comparative study concerning the physicochemical, monomeric composition and biological characters among different fucoidan fractions is presented. Common purification techniques for fucoidan usually involve many steps. During these steps, the impor...
Like many fields of the biosciences, actinomycete natural products research has been revolutionised by next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS). Hundreds of new genome sequences from actinobacteria are made public every year, many of them as a result of...
The study of bioactive compounds from marine animals has provided, over time, an endless source of interesting molecules. Jellyfish are commonly targets of study due to their toxic proteins. However, there is a gap in reviewing successful wet-lab met...
Pseurotins A1 (1) and A2 (2) were isolated from a culture broth of the fungal strain Aspergillus fumigatus WFZ-25 as stereoisomers of pseurotin A (3) in 2011. We also isolated 1 and 2 together with 3 from A. fumigatus OUPS-T106B-5 separated from the...
Sessile marine sponges provide an abundance of unique and diversified scaffolds. In particular, marine guanidine alkaloids display a very wide range of biological applications. A large number of cyclic guanidine alkaloids, including crambines, crambe...
Toxins that are secreted by cone snails are small peptides that are used to treat several diseases. However, their effects on parasites with human and veterinary significance are unknown. Toxoplasma gondii is an opportunistic parasite that affects ap...
The cyanobacteria are well recognized as producers of a wide array of bioactive metabolites including toxins, and potential drug candidates. However, a limited number of taxa are generally considered with respect to both of these aspects. That said,...
Salterns, one of the most extreme natural hypersaline environments, are a rich source of halophilic and halotolerant microorganisms, but they remain largely underexplored ecological niches in the discovery of bioactive secondary metabolites. In conti...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of systemic fucoxanthin treatment on alveolar bone resorption in rats with periodontitis. Thirty rats were divided into control, experimental periodontitis (EP), and experimental periodontitis-fucoxan...
Sargassum seaweeds produce abundant biomass in China and have long been used as herbal medicine and food. Their characteristic fatty acid (FA) profiles and related potential function in promoting cardiovascular health (CVH) have not been systematical...
Phlorofucofuroeckol A (PFF-A), one of the phlorotannins found in brown algae, has been reported to exert anti-cancer property. However, the molecular mechanism for the anti-cancer effect of PFF-A has not been known. Activating transcription factor 3...
Tetrahydropyrans are structural motifs that are abundantly present in a range of biologically important marine natural products. As such, significant efforts have been paid to the development of efficient and versatile methods for the synthesis of te...
Microalgae are sunlight-driven green cell factories for the production of potential bioactive products and biofuels. Nannochloropsis represents a genus of marine microalgae with high photosynthetic efficiency and can convert carbon dioxide to storage...
Fucoxanthin, a natural carotenoid abundant in edible brown seaweeds, has been shown to possess anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-obesity and anti-diabetic effects. In this study, we report for the first time that fucoxanthin effectively protects agains...
We test previous claims that the bacteria Vibrio alginolyticus produces tetrodotoxin (TTX) when living in symbiosis with the nemertean Lineus longissimus by a setup with bacteria cultivation for TTX production. Toxicity experiments on the shore crab,...
Anthraquinones and their derivatives constitute a large group of quinoid compounds with about 700 molecules described. They are widespread in fungi and their chemical diversity and biological activities recently attracted attention of industries in s...
