Microalgae Bioactive Carbohydrates as a Novel Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Source of Prebiotics: Emerging Health Functionality and Recent Technologies for Extraction and Detection.

Mostafa Gouda,Xiaoli Li,F Farmanullah,Yong He,Yinglei Zhao,Musa A Tadda,Bingquan Chu

doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.806692

Abstract

There is a global interest in the novel consumption, nutritional trends, and the market of new prebiotic sources and their potential functional impacts. Commercially available nutritional supplements based on microalgae that are approved to be edible by FDA, like Arthrospira platensis (Cyanobacteria) and Chlorella vulgaris (Chlorophyta) become widely attractive. Microalgae are rich in carbohydrates, proteins, and polyunsaturated fatty acids that have high bioactivity. Recently, scientists are studying the microalgae polysaccharides (PS) or their derivatives (as dietary fibers) for their potential action as a novel prebiotic source for functional foods. Besides, the microalgae prebiotic polysaccharides are used for medication due to their antioxidant, anticancer, and antihypertensive bioactivities. This review provides an overview of microalgae prebiotics and other macromolecules’ health benefits. The phytochemistry of various species as alternative future sources of novel polysaccharides were mentioned. The application as well as the production constraints and multidisciplinary approaches for evaluating microalgae phytochemistry were discussed. Additionally, the association between this potential of combining techniques like spectroscopic, chromatographic, and electrochemical analyses for microalgae sensation and analysis novelty compared to the chemical methods was emphasized.

Highlights

The international community’s attention has lately risen in a major way to the emerging market of dietary fibers and other phytochemical supplements, which are considered to be safe and have significant functional impacts
A potential limitation is the lack of reference structures of some microalgae proteins, and a wide range of analytical methods should be used for building a strong database based on these different analytical destructive or non-destructive techniques combined with chemometrics and other informatics methods
Spectroscopic Methods for Microalgae Physicochemical Structure Raman Micro-Spectroscopy of Single-Cell Microalgae Raman micro-spectroscopy is a quick, label-free, and nondestructive technology that is used for the characterization of single-cell chemical construction and their bioactivities through information frequency vibration of the functional molecules by laser light inelastic scattering [15]

Summary

Introduction

The international community’s attention has lately risen in a major way to the emerging market of dietary fibers and other phytochemical supplements, which are considered to be safe and have significant functional impacts. Microalgae are considered as future superfoods, as mentioned by Torres-Tiji et al [1]. They have several important nutritional phytochemicals such as phycocyanin (a novel protein in Spirulina), exopolysaccharides, polyphenols, and flavonoids. Many studies have reported that microalgae have high antiradical activity coming from their unique chemical structure [2]. Scientists are trying to find instant and non-invasive techniques to explore the scientific principles of microalgae phytochemicals’ functional principles, especially bioactive macromolecules and micromolcules [3]. These phytochemicals increase the media antioxidant, anticancer, and other physicochemical potentials [4–9]

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