Marine algae are valuable sources of structurally diverse bioactive compounds, among them, the group of sulfated polysaccharides (SPs). As an example of SPs, it could be cited the fucoidans in brown algae, carrageenans in red algae and ulvans in green algae. Since the past decades, SPs have been extracted from algae and evaluated in respect to their beneficial biological activities such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antimicrobial, anticoagulant, antithrombotic, immunological and anticancer. This review deals with the presentation of natively bioactive SPs structural features in addition to already employed approaches of SPs structure modifications, such as chemical and physical methods. Moreover, this article presents the advantages and the importance of using enzymatic methods during SPs modification, and particularly, the use of microorganisms as enzymes sources. Enzymes such as hydrolases/glycosidases (e.g. fucoidanase, fucosidase, agarase and carrageenase), lyases, sulfotransferases and sulfatases could be used for this purpose. It has been shown that more studies are necessary to obtain/identify opportunities to create novel, or to intensify, SPs biological properties. Considering the advantages in the use of microbial enzymes in biotransformation processes, studies related to the modification of SPs by microorganisms should be stimulated.
Bioremediation in petroleum-contaminated sediments was investigated under laboratory conditions that simulated an oil pipeline coming from the most productive offshore oil basin in Brazil and crossing the restinga ecosystem. Two scenarios were tested in case of an oil leakage of the pipeline: a superficial contamination of the beach sediment from the pipeline´s submarine section (P1) and a subsurface contamination of the restinga sediment (P2) in the onshore buried pipeline section. The slow-release fertilizer (SRF) Osmocote® was used in both P1 and P2 to stimulate oil biodegradation by the indigenous microorganisms, and its effectiveness was tested. After a 92-day experiment, biostimulation with Osmocote® was efficient, but differences were observed in the biodegradation behavior of the hydrocarbon compounds analyzed. The n-alkanes were biodegraded to trace levels after 28 days in P1 and P2, whereas pristane and phytane were totally degraded between days 28 and 42 in P1 and four weeks later in P2. Natural attenuation also played an important role in removing the n-alkanes and the isoalkanes (pristane and phytane). This research is innovative in using a SRF to develop a clean-up solution for the sensitive restinga ecosystem after an oil contamination event, especially when considering a leakage of the buried pipeline.
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