Effect of Sulfated Polysaccharides from Brown Algae on Apoptosis of Human Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes

Abstract

We studied the influence of fucoidans from brown algae Fucus evanescens, Laminaria cichorioides and Laminaria japonica on apoptosis of human peripheral blood lymphocytes. It was demonstrated that fucoidans induced lymphocyte apoptosis, increased the proportion of cells with low mitochondrial transmembrane potential, and inhibit expression of Bcl-xL gene in blood lymphocytes. These findings suggest that lymphocyte apoptosis induced by the analyzed sulfated polysaccharides is mediated by mitochondrial pathway.

Comparison of the Effects of Fucoidans on the Cell Viability of Tumor and Non-Tumor Cell Lines

“…Fucoidans from different algal species have rarely been directly compared in cell viability studies. Another problem is the use of high fucoidan concentrations in cell experiments [27,37], which may considerably exceed those applied in vivo (e.g., therapeutic concentrations of heparins range from 5 to 15 µg/mL) and/or may lead to artificial effects.…”

“…Moreover, for the cell viability analyses reported in literature, many different assays were used such as WST-1, MTT, Alamar Blue, Annexin V/PI staining, cell cycle analysis, neutral red release assay, trypan blue exclusion assay, which not always deliver similar results [20,21,22,24,27,28,36,37,41]. To investigate whether different fucoidans vary in their effects on cell viability as well as whether the effects differ in dependency on the cell line, we tested the cell viability using the commercially available MTS assay in a standardized assay and analysis procedure.…”

“…Another reason for the conflicting published effects of fucoidans on cell viability is the high variability of experimental designs concerning e.g., incubation time, type of assay and applied concentrations. Especially the latter varies by several orders of magnitude [27,28]. Testing high concentrations (>100 µg/mL) may be relevant for special applications such as topical use or tissue engineering [29].…”

“…Further, it has to be considered that the most frequently tested commercial fucoidan had pronounced batch variability in the past and its effects on cell viability correlated with its purity [14]. Finally, only a few studies compared the effects of fucoidans from different brown algal species [20,27,29,30] on cell viability so far, whereby the observed differences may sometimes result from different extraction and purification procedures, rather than the use of different algal material.…”

Fucoidans from Brown Alga Fucus evanescens: Structure and Biological Activity

“…The investigated fucoidans induced lymphocyte apoptosis through the mitochondrial pathway: they increased the proportion of cells with a low mitochondrial transmembrane potential and inhibited the expression of the Bcl-xL gene in blood lymphocytes (Gazha et al, 2015).…”