Abstract
Surface active agents are characterized for their capacity to adsorb to fluid and solid-water interfaces. They can be classified as surfactants and emulsifiers based on their molecular weight (MW) and properties. Over the years, the chemical surfactant industry has been rapidly increasing to meet consumer demands. Consequently, such a boost has led to the search for more sustainable and biodegradable alternatives, as chemical surfactants are non-biodegradable, thus causing an adverse effect on the environment. To these ends, many microbial and/or marine-derived molecules have been shown to possess various biological properties that could allow manufacturers to make additional health-promoting claims for their products. Our aim, in this review article, is to provide up to date information of critical health-promoting properties of these molecules and their use in blue-based biotechnology (i.e., biotechnology using aquatic organisms) with a focus on food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical/biomedical applications.
Highlights
Surface active agents (SAAs) are so named due to their capacity to adsorb to oil-water, air-water and solid-water interfaces
Surfactin has been involved in the biological synthesis of gold and silver NPs [200,201] while sophorolipids have been reported as effective capping and reducing agents, in the synthesis of gold and silver NPs, without any observed cytotoxicity and/or genotoxicity when tested in Fusarium oxysporum, Pseudomonas stutzeri AG259, Klebsiella penumoniae, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae
In the last few years, there has been a tremendous interest in exploring the opportunity for producing microbial and/or marine-derived surface active agents (SAAs; e.g., biosurfactants), a class of molecules with the capacity to adsorb to fluid and solid/water interphases
Summary
Surface active agents (SAAs) are so named due to their capacity to adsorb to oil-water, air-water and solid-water interfaces. Selection of the appropriate technique(s) should be performed based on the different properties of the target compound including solubility, charge, stability and molecular size Taking all such information together, the choice of chromatographic methods (and stationary phases to be used) are important for the analysis and/or purification of the marine extract, which could be a complex mixture of lipopeptides, glycolipids, or other biosurfactants. Our oceans are an immense source and a reservoir of rich and untapped biological resources, but at the same time they have to be exploited responsibly and sustainably In this review, both biological and functional properties of marine-derived SAAs will be discussed with an emphasis on biological activities which promote health and can form the basis of their use as “key ingredients” in blue-based biotechnology applications.
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