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Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds

Microalgae are known to produce a plethora of compounds derived from the primary and secondary metabolism. Different studies have shown that these compounds may have allelopathic, antimicrobial, and antipredator activities. In addition, in vitro and in vivo screenings have shown that several compoun...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Saide, Assunta, Martínez, Kevin A., Ianora, Adrianna, Lauritano, Chiara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8122763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33922258
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22094383
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author Saide, Assunta
Martínez, Kevin A.
Ianora, Adrianna
Lauritano, Chiara
author_facet Saide, Assunta
Martínez, Kevin A.
Ianora, Adrianna
Lauritano, Chiara
author_sort Saide, Assunta
collection PubMed
description Microalgae are known to produce a plethora of compounds derived from the primary and secondary metabolism. Different studies have shown that these compounds may have allelopathic, antimicrobial, and antipredator activities. In addition, in vitro and in vivo screenings have shown that several compounds have interesting bioactivities (such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antimicrobial) for the possible prevention and treatment of human pathologies. Additionally, the enzymatic pathways responsible for the synthesis of these compounds, and the targets and mechanisms of their action have also been investigated for a few species. However, further research is necessary for their full exploitation and possible pharmaceutical and other industrial applications. Here, we review the current knowledge on the chemical characteristics, biological activities, mechanism of action, and the enzymes involved in the synthesis of microalgal metabolites with potential benefits for human health.
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spelling pubmed-81227632021-05-16 Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds Saide, Assunta Martínez, Kevin A. Ianora, Adrianna Lauritano, Chiara Int J Mol Sci Review Microalgae are known to produce a plethora of compounds derived from the primary and secondary metabolism. Different studies have shown that these compounds may have allelopathic, antimicrobial, and antipredator activities. In addition, in vitro and in vivo screenings have shown that several compounds have interesting bioactivities (such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antimicrobial) for the possible prevention and treatment of human pathologies. Additionally, the enzymatic pathways responsible for the synthesis of these compounds, and the targets and mechanisms of their action have also been investigated for a few species. However, further research is necessary for their full exploitation and possible pharmaceutical and other industrial applications. Here, we review the current knowledge on the chemical characteristics, biological activities, mechanism of action, and the enzymes involved in the synthesis of microalgal metabolites with potential benefits for human health. MDPI 2021-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8122763/ /pubmed/33922258 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22094383 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Saide, Assunta
Martínez, Kevin A.
Ianora, Adrianna
Lauritano, Chiara
Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title_full Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title_fullStr Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title_full_unstemmed Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title_short Unlocking the Health Potential of Microalgae as Sustainable Sources of Bioactive Compounds
title_sort unlocking the health potential of microalgae as sustainable sources of bioactive compounds
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8122763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33922258
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22094383
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