Antioxidant Potential of Phycobiliproteins: Role in Anti-Aging Research

Abstract

Aging research has made significant progress over recent years, particularly after the formulation of 'Oxidative stress theory of aging'. According to this theory, aging and its associated abnormalities may be prevented, at least to some extent, by application of certain antioxidants. Cyanobacterial phycobiliproteins (PBPs), the major light harvesting pigment proteins are widely characterized for their in vivo and in vitro antioxidant activity. Since, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are considered as important factors to cause aging, PBPs can be used as an effective free radical scavengers and be a potent candidate to develop the anti-aging drug. The use of PBPs in preventing the oxidative stress mediated abnormalities or aging is rationally debated. The present review enlightens the recent advances in the field of antioxidant function of PBPs and major challenges in the application of these pigment proteins in anti-aging research. Also included is the possible mechanism behind the anti-aging capacity of these ecologically as well as economically important biomolecules.

Thermal and photo-stability of the antioxidant potential of Spirulina platensis powder

“…This compound, is used as a food coloring and has a great antioxidant (Patel et al, 2006;Sonani et al, 2015), anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and anti-cancer properties (Hirata et al, 2000;Romay et al, 2003;Patel et al, 2004;Eriksen, 2008). Sarada et al (1999) studied the stability of phycocyanin, and observed stability for 4 weeks in a pH range of 5-7.5 at 25°C and 9°C.…”

“…The AP of the Spirulina powder samples was evaluated in a lipid system consisting of soybean oil, according to the methodology proposed by Souza et al (2006). In 1000 mL beakers, 250 mL of soybean oil and 1 g of Spirulina platensis powder were added.…”

“…Other properties, such as the antimicrobial action (Parisi et al, 2009;Kaushik and Chauhan, 2008;Mala et al, 2009;Kumar et al, 2011;Sarada et al, 2011;Souza et al, 2011;El-Sheekh et al, 2014) and its influence on the survival of lactic acid bacteria (Perez et al, 2007), have been reported. Among the properties of microalgae, the antioxidant action by phenolic compounds and phycocyanin has been extensively studied in vitro (Jaime et al, 2005;Souza et al, 2006;Shalaby and Shanab, 2013) and in vivo systems (Guarienti et al, 2010;Bertolin et al, 2011).…”

Phycobilins and Phycobiliproteins Used in Food Industry and Medicine

“…However, in this Section the toxicology and potential health/medicinal effects and applications of phycobilins and phycobiliproteins are discussed. For further details about the roles of dietary phycocyanin [60,99] and phycobiliproteins [120] in animals and humans the readers are directed to the above-mentioned reviews [60,99,120].…”

“…A new medicinal aspect of phycobiliproteins and their antioxidant properties is their potential use in anti-aging research (reviewed in [120]). For instance, phycoerythrin purified from Lyngbia and applied as dietary supplement improved the mean life span, moderated the decline in agingassociated physiological functions, enhanced stress tolerance, and also showed positive effects on an Alzheimer's disease model in a transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans CL4176 model [137,138].…”