Kalimuthu Senthilkumar

Brown seaweed fucoidan: biological activity and apoptosis, growth signaling mechanism in cancer.

Seaweeds, being abundant sources of bioactive components have much interest in recent times. The complex polysaccharides from the brown, red and green seaweeds possess broad spectrum therapeutic properties. The sulfated polysaccharides are routinely used in biomedical research and have known biological activities. Fucoidan, a fucose-rich polysaccharide extracted from brown seaweed has various biological functions including anticancer effects. Cellular damage induces growth arrest and tumor suppression by inducing apoptosis, the mechanism of cell death depends on the magnitude of DNA damage following exposure to anticancer agents. Apoptosis is mainly regulated by cell growth signaling molecules. Number of research studies evidenced that fucoidan shown to induce cytotoxicity of various cancer cells, induces apoptosis, and inhibits invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis of cancer cells. There are few articles discussing on fucoidan biological activity but no specific review on cancer and its signaling mechanism. Hence, this review discusses the brown seaweed fucoidan structure and some biological function and role in apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis and growth signal mechanism on cancer.

Biosynthesis, Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Effect of Silver Nanoparticles Using a Novel Nocardiopsis sp. MBRC-1

The biosynthesis of nanoparticles has been proposed as a cost effective environmental friendly alternative to chemical and physical methods. Microbial synthesis of nanoparticles is under exploration due to wide biomedical applications, research interest in nanotechnology and microbial biotechnology. In the present study, an ecofriendly process for the synthesis of nanoparticles using a novel Nocardiopsis sp. MBRC-1 has been attempted. We used culture supernatant of Nocardiopsis sp. MBRC-1 for the simple and cost effective green synthesis of silver nanoparticles. The reduction of silver ions occurred when silver nitrate solution was treated with the Nocardiopsis sp. MBRC-1 culture supernatant at room temperature. The nanoparticles were characterized by UV-visible, TEM, FE-SEM, EDX, FTIR, and XRD spectroscopy. The nanoparticles exhibited an absorption peak around 420 nm, a characteristic surface plasmon resonance band of silver nanoparticles. They were spherical in shape with an average particle size of 45 ± 0.15 nm. The EDX analysis showed the presence of elemental silver signal in the synthesized nanoparticles. The FTIR analysis revealed that the protein component in the form of enzyme nitrate reductase produced by the isolate in the culture supernatant may be responsible for reduction and as capping agents. The XRD spectrum showed the characteristic Bragg peaks of 1 2 3, 2 0 4, 0 4 3, 1 4 4, and 3 1 1 facets of the face centered cubic silver nanoparticles and confirms that these nanoparticles are crystalline in nature. The prepared silver nanoparticles exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi. Cytotoxicity of biosynthesized AgNPs against in vitro human cervical cancer cell line (HeLa) showed a dose-response activity. IC50 value was found to be 200 μg/mL of AgNPs against HeLa cancer cells. Further studies are needed to elucidate the toxicity and the mechanism involved with antimicrobial and anticancer activity of the synthesized AgNPs as nanomedicine.

Marine Invertebrate Natural Products for Anti-Inflammatory and Chronic Diseases

The marine environment represents a relatively available source of functional ingredients that can be applied to various aspects of food processing, storage, and fortification. Moreover, numerous marine invertebrates based compounds have biological activities and also interfere with the pathogenesis of diseases. Isolated compounds from marine invertebrates have been shown to pharmacological activities and are helpful for the invention and discovery of bioactive compounds, primarily for deadly diseases like cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), osteoporosis, and so forth. Extensive research within the last decade has revealed that most chronic illnesses such as cancer, neurological diseases, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases exhibit dysregulation of multiple cell signaling pathways that have been linked to inflammation. On the basis of their bioactive properties, this review focuses on the potential use of marine invertebrate derived compounds on anti-inflammatory and some chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, HIV, and cancer.

Isolation and characterization of biologically active melanin from Actinoalloteichus sp. MA-32

Melanins are enigmatic pigments and biological macromolecules that are produced by a wide variety of microorganisms including several species of bacteria and fungi. The present study was carried out on isolation and characterization of melanin from marine actinobacteria, Actinoalloteichus sp. MA-32. Medium composition and culture conditions for the melanin production by Actinoalloteichus sp. MA-32 were optimized using two statistical methods: Plackett-Burman design applied to find the key ingredients and conditions for the best yield of melanin production and central composite design used to optimize the concentration of the four significant variables: glycerol, L-tyrosine, NaCl and trace salt solution. The melanin was optimally active at pH 7-9 and temperature 45-60°C and it was most stable up to pH 11 and 4% of NaCl concentration. Melanin was examined by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy and infrared spectrometry. Melanin has potential antibacterial activity as it showed greater antagonistic and it has a strong antioxidant potential observed in the in vitro evaluation of its DPPH radical-scavenging activity, superoxide radical-scavenging activity, nitric oxide-scavenging activity, reducing power and metal chelating activity. The observed activities indicate that melanin might be a novel potential antioxidant. This study suggested that the melanin could potentially be used as a natural antioxidant in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.

Production and characterization of an extracellular polysaccharide from Streptomyces violaceus MM72

The isolation, optimization, purification and characterization of an extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) from a marine actinobacterium, Streptomyces violaceus MM72 were investigated. Medium composition and culture conditions for the EPS production by S. violaceus MM72 were optimized using two statistical methods: Plackett-Burman design applied to find the key ingredients and conditions for the best yield of EPS production and central composite design used to optimize the concentration of the three significant variables: glucose, tryptone and NaCl. The preferable culture conditions for EPS production were pH 7.0, temperature 35°C and NaCl concentration 2.0% for 120h with fructose and yeast extract as best carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively. The results showed that S. violaceus MM72 produced a kind of EPS having molecular weight of 8.96×10(5)Da. In addition, the EPS showed strong DPPH radical-scavenging activity, superoxide scavenging and metal chelating activities while moderate inhibition of lipid peroxidation and reducing activities determined in this study. These results showed the great potential of EPS produced by S. violaceus MM72 could be used in industry in place of synthetic compounds. The EPS from S. violaceus MM72 may be a new source of natural antioxidants with potential value for health, food and therapeutics.

Anticancer effects of fucoidan.

Recently, there has been an increased interest in the pharmacologically active natural compounds isolated and used for remedies of various kinds of diseases, including cancer. The great deal of interest has been developed to isolate bioactive compounds from marine resources because of their numerous health beneficial effects. Among marine resources, marine algae are valuable sources of structurally diverse bioactive compounds. Fucoidan is a sulfated polysaccharide derived from brown seaweeds and has been used as an ingredient in some dietary supplement products. Fucoidan has various biological activities including antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant, and antitumor activities. So this chapter deals with anticancer effects of fucoidan.

Biomedical Applications of Fucoidan, Seaweed Polysaccharides

Seaweed is a marine resource, being abundant sources of bioactive components are present and useful for nutritional aspects. The brown, red, and green seaweeds are complex polysaccharides from the marine source possess broad-spectrum therapeutic properties. Sulfated polysaccharides are routinely used in biomedical research with known biological activities and have been extensively studied for several biomedical, biological, and functional food applications. Fucoidan, a fucose-rich polysaccharide extracted from seaweeds has various biological properties including anticancer actions. Sulfated polysaccharides or fucoidan have been increasingly studied over the years in the pharmaceutical field applications, such as the design of drug-delivery systems. In this chapter, we discusses the brown seaweed sulfated polysaccharides or fucoidan biomedical applications.

Marine Sponge-Derived Antiangiogenic Compounds for Cancer Therapeutics

The biological properties of various metabolites from sponges reported recently and marine sponges are considered as a gold mine for past 50 years. Sponge-derived compounds and their metabolites have different types of biological activity such as antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, antimalarial, antioxidant, anti-HIV, and anticancer activity. Angiogenesis is the important process in tumor progression. The term “angiogenic switch” refers to a very important event during the tumor progression between pro- and antiangiogenic factors. Angiogenesis and its mechanistic pathway targeting may be useful for therapeutic approach for cancer. Recent times many compounds from marine sources have proven important role against cancer. These compounds inhibit cell proliferation and angiogenesis of cancer. In this chapter, we discuss the antiangiogenic compounds isolated from marine sponge that work against cancer.