Antiretroviral activity of fucoidans extracted from the brown seaweed Adenocystis utricularis

Abstract

Treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1, causative agent of AIDS) infection represents a major challenge in antiviral therapeutics. Many difficulties are associated with the treatment, including toxicity, resistance and high costs. Taking this into account, research for novel compounds able to overcome these limitations is needed. Sulfated polysaccharides appear to be interesting, given their abundance as components of seaweeds. Herein, a series of fractions obtained from the brown seaweed Adenocystis utricularis was analysed for in vitro anti-HIV-1 activity. These fractions, which have anti-herpes simplex virus activity, were determined previously to belong to the family of fucoidans, sulfated polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of brown seaweeds. Assays in human PBMC primary cell culture demonstrated that two of the five fractions analysed had potent anti-HIV-1 activity both against WT and drug-resistant HIV-1 strains. For active fractions, it was also shown that the inhibitory effect was not due to an inactivating effect on the viral particle (i.e. no virucidal activity was detected) but rather to a blockade of early events of viral replication. Given these encouraging results, these seaweed-derived fractions appear as good candidates for further studies on their potential for in vivo therapy and/or prophylaxis of HIV-1 infection.

A 4-week repeated oral dose toxicity study of fucoidan from the Sporophyll of Undaria pinnatifida in Sprague–Dawley rats

“…Fucoidan has antiviral, anti-cancer, anti-proliferation, and anticoagulant activities from other algae species in vivo and in vitro (Gavrilova et al, 1997;Hayakawa and Nagamine, 2009;Teruya et al, 2007;Trinchero et al, 2009), and the anti-coagulant activity could cause adverse events after oral treatment. Interestingly, fucoidan treatment did not change PT or APTT values, indicating a lack of effects on blood clotting in our treatment paradigm.…”

Designed optimization of a single-step extraction of fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides from Sargassum sp.

“…These fucosecontaining sulfated polysaccharides (FCSPs) can be extracted from brown seaweed species such as Fucus, Laminaria, and Sargassum Mori and Nisizawa 1982). A range of biological activities have been attributed to FCSPs including anti-tumoral (Zhuang et al 1995), anti-viral (Adhikari et al 2006;Trinchero et al 2009), anti-inflammatory (Blondin et al 1994); and notably anticoagulant effects (Nardella et al 1996). The potential pharmaceutical and medical applications of FCSPs have recently directed special interest into utilization of brown seaweeds as a source of FCSPs Cumashi et al 2007).…”

Anti-HIV-1 activity in human primary cells and Anti-HIV-1 RT inhibitory activity of extracts from the red seaweed Acanthophora spicifera

“…Each value is expressed as mean±SEM in triplicate experiments. The average value of absorbance was used to determine the concentration of p24 in the samples treated by comparison to a standard curve (Trinchero et al, 2009). …”