Dear Colleagues,

Macroalgae or seaweeds are used worldwide, mainly as a raw material for human nutrition and in the phycocolloid industry. Because they grow in complex habitats, they are sources of specific bioactive metabolites not found in other organisms. These diverse compounds produced under natural or controlled environments could be used in various industrial domains.

With the current challenges of feeding the world’s population, while also reducing the use of antibiotics and phytosanitary products, seaweed-derived nutrients and bioactive compounds have potential as functional food ingredients, as they possess advantageous effects to help prevent chronic diseases and create health benefits, such as anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory activities.

To reduce the production cost of new active compounds, an integrated sustainable biorefinery approach facilitating the extraction of different products from the same biomass is of high importance. Another important aspect to take into account is seaweed biomass production. The use of aquaculture wastewater as nutrients for seaweed is recognized as the most promising proposal for reducing the negative impacts of aquaculture in the surrounding environment, and to produce algae biomass.

This Special Issue focuses on novel information from the present research on seaweed metabolites. Particular attention will be paid to the following innovative track explorations:

• the impact of growth conditions (including integrated multi-trophic aquaculture) on seaweed metabolites
• biorefinery and eco-friendly processes to provide strategies for the release of metabolites
• advanced metabolite fractionation and the identification of novel bioactive compounds by structural analysis and imaging, including a high screening content analysis and metabolomic analysis
• innovative methods for the determination of biological activities, the study of mechanisms, and the relation between the chemical structure and activity.

Dr. Gilles Bedoux
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Cultivation
• Aquaculture
• Biorefinery
• Eco-extraction
• Fractionation
• Structural analysis
• Biological activity
• Biosynthesis