Glycolipids from macroalgae: potential biomolecules for marine biotechnology?

Abstract

Brown, red and green algae from the Southeastern coast of Brazil were successively extracted with chloroform/methanol 2:1 and 1:2 (v/v). The crude lipid extract was partitioned according to Folch and the lower phase enriched in glycolipids was fractionated on a silica gel column chromatography eluted with chloroform, acetone and methanol. Three major orcinol-reactive bands present in the acetone and methanol fractions were detected by thin-layer chromatography with chromatographic mobilities corresponding to sulfoglycolipids and glycosyldiacylglycerols. These fractions exhibited potent antiviral activity against HSV-1-ACVs and HSV-1-ACVr and present low toxicity for cell cultures. Purification and identification of these bioactive glycolipids will be necessary in order to elucidate their primary structures and mechanism of action.

Neuroprotective Effects of the Cultivated Chondrus crispus in a C. elegans Model of Parkinson’s Disease

“…Lutein and EPA were also reported to have neuroprotective effects in retina- [ 31 ] and LPS- induced dysfunction in rat hippocampus [ 32 ], respectively. In addition, unsaturated fatty acids and glycolipids were found to alleviate oxidative stress and thus have antioxidant activity [ 13 , 33 , 34 ]. Nevertheless, due to the fact that CCME consists of multiple bioactive compounds and each of them constituents a small proportion, the CCME-imparted neuroprotective effect in C. elegans is most likely to be a synergistic effect of the unsaturated fatty acids, glycolipids, floridoside, isothionic acid and other components such as pigments and free amino acids.…”

Algal lipids, fatty acids and sterols

“…According to Christie (1993), extraction solvents/mixtures should be polar enough to remove lipids from their associating cell constituents, but not too polar that the solvents do not readily solubilize all the TAGs and other non-polar lipids. Chloroform-methanol based Bligh and Dyer (Bligh and Dyer, 1959) and Folch (Folch et al , 1957) methods have been the most popular methods among algal researchers, and various modifi cations have been proposed to suit different types of sample matrices (Khotimchenko, 2003;Kumari et al , 2011;Mattos et al , 2011;Sanina et al , 2004). Further, fatty acids are extracted either by conventional lipid extraction followed by transmethylation reactions or by one-step direct transesterifi cation (DT) methods where methylation reagent is added directly to the algal samples without previous lipid extraction (Christie, 1993;de Boer et al , 2012;Griffi ths et al , 2010;Laurens et al , 2012;Mercer and Armenta, 2011).…”

Lipidomic Approaches towards Deciphering Glycolipids from Microalgae as a Reservoir of Bioactive Lipids

“…Glycolipids extracts isolated from distinct cyanobacteria containing sulfolipids and galactolipids ( Table 1 ) had the capacity to inhibit the polymerase activity of HIV-1 RT [ 20 , 39 ]. The mechanism of the action of GLs remains obscure, but as was stated above, the bioactivity of GLs results from the sugar moiety, the position of the glycerol linkage to the sugar, the length and location of the acyl chain and the anomeric configuration of the sugar [ 65 ]. The antiviral activity of SQDGs may be supplied by the sulfonate group [ 17 ].…”