Abstract
The importance of fucoidan as a functional ingredient in food, health products, and pharmaceutics is well-recognized due to its beneficial biological effects. Fucoidan is usually extracted from brown seaweeds, including Undaria pinnatifida. Fucoidan exhibits beneficial bio-activity and has antioxidant, anticancer, and anticoagulant properties. This review focuses on the biological activity of U. pinnatifida-derived fucoidan and investigates its structure–activity or fraction–activity relationship. It also describes several fucoidan extracts, along with their claimed anticancer effects. It aims to provide information and thoughts for future research such as the development of fucoidan into functional foods or nutraceuticals.
Highlights
Many studies have focused on marine products, including seaweeds, in the pursuit of novel drugs discovery/development [1]
The fucoidan structure factors effecting anticancer activity are mainly the content of sulfate and the linking mode of the polysaccharide skeleton, and the main factors affecting the antioxidant and anticoagulant activity are the content of sulfate and the molecular weight of the polysaccharide
Fucoidan isolated from the sporophylls of U. pinnatifida collected from Wando, South Korea, has an average molecular weight of 2100 kDa [16]
Summary
Many studies have focused on marine products, including seaweeds, in the pursuit of novel drugs discovery/development [1]. Fucoidan is a natural sulfated polysaccharide that exists mainly in the cell wall matrix of various species of brown seaweed that are consumed by humans, such as mozuku, kombu, limumoui, bladderwrack, and wakame (the Japanese name of U. pinnatifida) [2,3]. It was first isolated by Kylin in. Korea, and has been introduced in many other places including the Europe Atlantic, Mediterranean, Australia, and New Zealand (Figure 3) It is regarded as a highly invasive species with. Wide range ofactivities, biological activities, itself as functional an attractive functional ingredient of health products [2,3]
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