abstract
Marine environments have a high quantity and diversity of sulfated polysaccharides. In coastal regions brown algae are the most abundant biomass producers and their cell walls have fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides (FCSP), known as fucans and/or fucoidans. These sulfated compounds have been widely researched for their biomedical properties, namely the immunomodulatory, haemostasis, pathogen inhibition, anti-inflammatory capacity, and antitumoral. These activities are probably due to their ability to mimic the carbohydrate moieties of mammalian glycosaminoglycans. Therefore, the FCSP are interesting compounds for application in health-related subjects, mainly for developing scaffolds for delivery systems or tissue regeneration. FCSP showed potential for these applications also due to their ability to form stable 3D structures with other polymers able to entrap therapeutic agents or cell and growth factors, besides their biocompatibility and biodegradability. However, for the clinical use of these biopolymers well-defined reproducible molecules are required in order to accurately establish relationships between structural features and human health applications.
keywords
IRON-OXIDE NANOPARTICLES; BROWN-ALGAE; IN-VITRO; SURFACE MODIFICATION; STRUCTURAL FEATURES; ANTIVIRAL ACTIVITY; FUCOIDAN; CHITOSAN; CANCER; ANTICOAGULANT
subject category
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Pharmacology & Pharmacy
authors
Nunes, C; Coimbra, MA
our authors
Cláudia Nunes
Assistant Researcheracknowledgements
This work was developed within the scope of CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (FCT UID/CTM/50011/2019) and QOPNA (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2019), financed by national founds through the FCT/MEC and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. C. Nunes thanks FCT for her grant (SFRH/BPD/100627/2014).This work was also funded by national funds (OE), through FCT, I.P., within the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19.