Natural products: an extraordinary source of value-added compounds from diverse biomasses in Brazil

Viviane Cândida Da Silva,Clenilson Martins Rodrigues

doi:10.1186/s40538-014-0014-0

Viviane Cândida Da Silva, Clenilson Martins Rodrigues

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40538-014-0014-0

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Abstract

The biodiversity of Brazil contains an extraordinary number of compounds from natural products with a wide and complex variety of molecular structures, therefore representing an economic potential in biomasses to be explored. Plant systems are the principal source of medicine and directly contribute to the development of new drugs in addition to agrochemicals, cosmetics, fine chemicals and nutraceuticals. Besides plants, other biomasses can be used as raw material, including marine organisms and microorganisms such as extremophilic and endophytic microbes. Interest in natural products for diverse uses is attributed to their different bioactivities, low toxicity and environmental sustainability. Based on these attributes, other non-biological applications of natural products from biomasses have been reported for use in textiles, antifouling coating in marine transportation, wood adhesives, industrial polymers and biofuel. After extractions of natural products of pharmaceutical interest or industrial application, such as polymers, or even of metabolites for biofuels, the residues (e.g., fibers) or other compounds (e.g., nutrients) are discarded generating unnecessary environmental pollution, but they could be used for the production of different value-added products. Some examples of residues that are being explored for added value by extracting other natural metabolites are olive and apple pomace, macauba and carnauba cakes, and cashew nut shell liquid. Residues and by-products derived from different biomasses in Brazil are a potential source of compounds of biological and industrial interest and therefore must be investigated in order to add value to the entire supply chain of natural product.

Highlights

Brazil has an amazing diversity in living species - plants, animals and microorganisms - due to its great territorial extension and combination of different biomes, such as the Cerrado, Atlantic forest, and Amazon rainforest [1].Since early human history, natural products - compounds produced by plants, animals, or microorganisms - have been studied and utilized for the treatment of diseases
Plants are the principal source of medicine and directly contribute to the development of new drugs in addition to agrochemicals, cosmetics and food [2]
The residual biomass post-oil extraction has been widely investigated for the extraction of by-products or the direct application in some sectors, such as food or agronomic, aiming to increase the added value of these residues

Summary

Introduction

Brazil has an amazing diversity in living species - plants, animals and microorganisms - due to its great territorial extension and combination of different biomes, such as the Cerrado, Atlantic forest, and Amazon rainforest [1]. The country comprises different and important biomes, such as the savannah area (Cerrado), the Amazonian rainforest and the Atlantic tropical forest It is a rich and biologically diverse on three levels (genetic, species, and ecosystem), the product of large climate variability and geomorphology of a country of continental dimensions. This diversity results in an extraordinary number of compounds of natural products with a wide and complex variety of molecular structures and represents an economic potential in biomass to be explored [3]. An example of bioactive compounds found in endophytic microbe, present in tissues of living plant cells, is the polyketide citrinin (Figure 1) isolated from the endophytic fungus Penicillium janthinellum, and from the fruit of Melia azedarach (Meliaceae), a plant collected in Brazil, which inhibited 100% of Leishmania mexicana at a concentration of 40 μg/mL [15]

Halichondrin B

Other fatty materialsb

Findings

Conclusions