Abstract
Marine brown macroalgae have stood out as important sources of new bioactive products, such as antimicrobial, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory and antiviral drugs. This study aimed to review the literature on the applications of products derived from brown macroalgae as antiviral agents against human herpesviruses. To date, species of seven distinct orders of brown algae have been studied for this purpose, such as Fucales (19 species), Dictyotales (14 species), Ectocarpales (9 species), Laminariales (2 species), Scytothamnales (1 species), Sphacelariales (1 species) and Tilopteridales (1 species). The products evaluated in this review include extracts, fractions and isolated natural products, mainly terpenoids. Extracts, fractions and isolates of brown algae were evaluated against four viruses: simple herpesviruses types 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Epstein–Barr Virus (VEB), also known as human herpesvirus 4 (HHV-4). This review shows products derived from brown macroalgae as potential antiherpetic agents. Key words: Brown algae, antiviral, marine natural products.
Highlights
Infections caused by human herpesviruses are a worldwide public health problem since they are responsible for several clinical manifestations that can severely compromise the quality of life of patients and even cause death (Rechenchoski et al, 2017)
Several brown macroalgae products have been evaluated against different human herpesviruses
14 species of this family have been explored as sources of antiviral products against human herpesviruses (Table 1)
Summary
Infections caused by human herpesviruses are a worldwide public health problem since they are responsible for several clinical manifestations that can severely compromise the quality of life of patients and even cause death (Rechenchoski et al, 2017). Herpesviruses belong to the herpesviridae family, which has more than 80 viruses identified but only eight of them are infectious agents in humans. These eight viruses belong to different subfamilies. Herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2) and varicella-zoster virus (VZV) belong to Alphaherpesvirinae, cytomegalovirus (CMV) and human herpesviruses 6 and 7 (HHV-6 and HHV-7) are included in Betaherpesvirinae, and EpsteinBarr virus and human herpesvirus 8(HHV-8) belongs to subfamily Gammaherpesvirinae (Frisch and Guo, 2013; McAllister and Schleiss, 2014). Despite the great concern with these diseases, infections by some herpesviruses such as HSV-1, HSV-2 and VZV have no cure and the treatment available is palliative. The emergence and dissemination of viral strains resistant to available antiviral drugs has been reported, which creates the need for more effective therapeutic strategies (Gilbert et al, 2002; Piret and Boivin, 2017)
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