A fucose containing polymer-rich fraction from the brown alga Ascophyllum nodosum mediates lifespan increase and thermal-tolerance in Caenorhabditis elegans, by differential effects on gene and protein expression

Abstract

The extracts of the brown alga, Ascophyllum nodosum, which contains several bioactive compounds, have been shown to impart biotic and abiotic stress tolerance properties when consumed by animals. However, the physiological, biochemical and molecular mechanism underlying such effects remain elusive. We investigated the effect of A. nodosum fucose-containing polymer (FCP) on tolerance to thermally induced stress using the invertebrate animal model, Caenorhabditis elegans. FCP at a concentration of 150 μg mL(-1) significantly improved the life span and tolerance against thermally induced stress in C. elegans. The treatment increased the C. elegans survival by approximately 24%, when the animals were under severe thermally induced stress (i.e. 35 °C) and 27% under mild stress (i.e. 30 °C) conditions. The FCP induced differential expression of genes and proteins is associated with stress response pathways. Under thermal stress, FCP treatment significantly altered the expression of 65 proteins (54 up-regulated & 11 down-regulated). Putative functional analysis of FCP-induced differential proteins signified an association of altered proteins in stress-related molecular and biochemical pathways of the model worm.

Temperature adaptations of the thermophilic snail Echinolittorina malaccana: insights from metabolomic analysis

“…L-Fucose is a constituent of many structural polysaccharides and glycoproteins in various organisms and plays important metabolic roles in complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins. It can also induce antioxidant activity against oxidative stress (Kandasamy et al, 2014;Vermeer et al, 2001). The accumulation of GDP-L-fucose at 45°C and 52°C indicated that the antioxidant protection of E. malaccana may change as thermal stress intensifies; reliance on dipeptides is reduced and other systems like those induced by GDP-L-fucose assume greater importance.…”

Brown seaweeds added in the diet improved the response to thermal shock and reduced Vibrio spp. in pacific white shrimp post‐larvae reared in a biofloc system

“…After heat stress, Kandasamy et al (2014) also observed higher survival of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans fed a commercial product derived from the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum . The authors stated that this increased survival was associated with an improvement of antioxidant activity, as well as changes in major stress‐related proteins and gene expression.…”

“…After heat stress, Kandasamy et al (2014) followed by lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. All these mechanisms can trigger the ER stress and apoptosis machinery, resulting in serious physiological damage to the organism (Hayward et al, 2014;Hermes-Lima et al, 2015;Qiu et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2019).…”

“…Brown seaweeds have been associated with improving thermal stress resistance in animals and plants (Kandasamy et al, 2014; Nair et al, 2012). For Pacific white shrimp (±10 g), studies carried out with different levels (0.5, 2 and 4%) of Sargassum filipendula and Undaria pinnatifida dry biomass, added separately in the diet, showed that levels from 0.5 to 2% improved shrimp resistance to thermal shock (Schleder et al, 2017).…”