Because of the affinity of certain bacterial species for sulphated glycoconjugates exposed on the epithelial cells of susceptible hosts, we hypothesized that sulphated exopolysaccharides of microalgae can be used in anti‐adhesive therapies against bacterial infections, both in cold‐ and warm‐blooded animals. In this study we found that adhesion of the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori to the HeLa S3 cell line, and adhesion of the fish pathogens Vibrio campbellii, V. ordalii, Streptococcus saprophyticus, and Aeromonas veronii to spotted sand bass primary tissue culture cells, can be effectively blocked with the various sulphated exopolysaccharides used.

An in vitro ®sh model to study the interaction between Aeromonas veronii and skin, gill and intestinal epithelial cells was developed using primary cultures of mucosal cells (isolated from healthy organisms). Primary cultures were exposed to Aeromonas veronii strain A186 isolated from a patient with severe gastrointestinal disease. Microbial adherence was assessed by a spectrophotometric evaluation of an enzyme-linked, biotin-streptavidin Aer. veronii celladhesion assay to con¯uent monolayers of epithelial cells on 96-well tissue culture plates. The three primary-culture cells are susceptible to Aer. veronii attachment, with the greatest binding af®nity found in gills, and to a lesser extent, in skin and intestine epithelial cells. Aer. veronii adherence was dependent on bacterial load and incubation time. The effect of glycoconjugates on Aer. veronii adhesion was investigated by pre-incubating Aer. veronii cells with monosaccharides, sialic acid-rich glycoproteins and sulphated polysaccharides. In addition, the participation of a 48-kDa Aer. veronii lectin (MCBP ± mucosal constituents binding protein), with af®nity for mucosal constituents, was evaluated as a putative adhesion factor of Aer. veronii to the mucosal epithelial cells of spotted sand bass by pre-incubating bacterial cells with rabbit polyclonal antibodies to Aer. veronii MCBP. Our study shows that primary-culture ®sh mucosal cells provide a suitable model for the study of the interactions between Aer. veronii and epithelial cells of the ®sh mucosa, and to study putative virulence factors of ®sh pathogens.

We evaluated the salt tolerance of hybrids of pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) during germination. Treatments were applied at 0, 25, and 50 mM NaCl with preparations of supplemental extracts of the microalgae Dunaliella salina and Phaeodactylum tricornutum to determine the percentage germination rate as well as measured indicators of oxidative stress caused by the salt treatments during seed germination. We found that root growth was favorably influenced by the microalgae leading to increased germination rate. Tissues were analyzed in terms of superoxide radical production, lipid peroxidation, and activity of antioxidant enzymes viz. superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase. Our results suggest that application of microalgae extracts significantly reduced (p < 0.05) superoxide radical production, as well as lower lipid peroxidation in comparison to plants without extracts of microalgae. The antioxidant enzymes increased in the presence of microalgae showing a significant difference (p < 0.05). The results suggest differences in oxidative metabolism in response to the magnitude of salt stress and concentrations of microalgae help mitigate salt stress in plants during the germination process.

To determine whether Helicobacter pylori heparan sulphate-binding proteins (HSBPs) are involved in the adherence of H. pylori to HeLa and Kato III cells, monolayers were pre-incubated with various preparations and concentrations of H. pylori HSBPs at 378C, washed and then challenged with bacteria. HSBPs did not prevent but enhanced H. pylori adherence. However, challenging cultured cells with H. pylori previously incubated with rabbit anti-HSBP IgG resulted in signi®cant inhibition of bacterial adherence. These data demonstrate that the extracellular HSBP plays an important role in promoting H. pylori attachment to Kato III and HeLa S3 cells, that adhesion of H. pylori to Kato III and HeLa S3 cells is promoted by the presence of the 71.5-kDa extracellular HSBP and that rabbit polyclonal antibodies against this HSBP can inhibit adhesion of H. pylori to the cultured cell lines and detach cell-bound H. pylori.

Microalgae cultures are receiving attention because of increasing biotechnological and biomedical production of active biomolecules. We evaluated various fertilizer-based culture media to scale up production of the marine microalga Phaeodactylum tricornutum for production of exocellular polysaccharides (EPS), soluble proteins, and cellular superoxide dismutase (SOD). The standard source of sodium nitrate was the same as that used in the synthetic f/2 culture medium and ammonium nitrate, urea, ammonium sulfate, and calcium nitrate as alternative sources of nitrogen. The maximum production of EPS was achieved in microalgae cells grown in the culture media containing 63 and 23% nitrogen from ammonium sulfate, and also in microalgae cells grown in the culture media containing 3% nitrogen from ammonium nitrate. The maximum production of cellular SOD was achieved in microalgae cells grown in the culture media containing 35 and 26% nitrogen from ammonium sulfate, and in the culture media containing 17% nitrogen from urea. The results suggest that it is possible to use a source of nitrogen, other than sodium nitrate, to scale up growth of P. tricornutum for production of EPS and SOD at reduced costs.