Dai-Nghiep Ngo

Biological activities and potential health benefits of bioactive peptides derived from marine organisms

Marine organisms have been recognized as rich sources of bioactive compounds with valuable nutraceutical and pharmaceutical potentials. Recently, marine bioactive peptides have gained much attention because of their numerous health beneficial effects. Notably, these peptides exhibit various biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-hypertensive, anti-human immunodeficiency virus, anti-proliferative, anticoagulant, calcium-binding, anti-obesity and anti-diabetic activities. This review mainly presents biological activities of peptides from marine organisms and emphasizing their potential applications in foods as well as pharmaceutical areas.

Inhibitory effect of aminoethyl-chitooligosaccharides on invasion of human fibrosarcoma cells.

Chitooligosaccharides (COS) have been reported to show a variety of biological efficacies such as anti-bacterial activity, anti-tumor activity and immune activity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the inhibitory effect of aminoethyl-chitooligosaccharides (AE-COS) synthesized from COS that were substituted hydroxyl groups with aminoethyl group at C-6 position on cell invasion of human fibrosarcoma cells. First of all, the effect of AE-COS on cell viability was observed using MTT assay. The cytotoxicity of AE-COS was increased in a dose dependent manner. The inhibitory effects of AE-COS on the activity and expression level of MMP-2 and MMP-9 related to invasion of cancer cells were examined using gelatin zymography and western blot. It was found that AE-COS above 20μg/ml showed the inhibitory effect on the activity and expression of MMP-9. Furthermore, AE-COS at 20μg/ml reduced the expression level of p50, a part of NF-κB, compared with phorbol-12- myristate-13- acetate (PMA) group. The available data let us hypothesize that AE-COS could provide chemoprevention as an inhibitor against cell invasion associated with metastasis.