Abstract
Marine organisms are potentially prolific sources of high qualify fatty acids that represent useful leads in the development of new nutraceutical agents. In this work, we investigated the lipid composition of six algae species from the Northwest of Spain (Ulva intestinalis, Ulva lactuca, Fucus vesiculosus, Dictyota dichotoma, Cystoseira baccata and Himanthalia elongata) and compared the antioxidant and antibacterial activity of ethanolic extracts obtained by pressurized liquid extraction (PLE). Furthermore, Fucus vesiculosus (F. vesiculosus) PLE using five solvents of different polarities (hexane, ethyl acetate, acetone, ethanol and ethanol:water 50:50) at three temperatures (80 °C, 120 °C and 160 °C) was investigated. F. vesiculosus ethanolic PLE extract presents considerably higher capacity of inhibiting 50% of DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl) (IC50 = 7.17 μg/mL) in comparison with the rest of macroalgae studied. Moreover, the potential antimicrobial activity tested on E. coli and S. aureus shows that F. vesiculosus extract produced the best inhibition (IC50 was 2.24 mg/mL (E. coli) and 1.27 mg/mL (S. aureus)). Furthermore, regarding the different solvents and temperatures used to investigate F. vesiculosus PLE, results showed that this technique using ethyl acetate is a selective method to enrich long chain fatty acids (oleic acid, arachidonic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid) with ω-6/ω-3 ratios close to 2.7.
Highlights
The economic potential of the algae industry is widely recognized
Results showed that F. vesiculosus followed by C. baccata are the best candidates to exploit them as a nutraceuticals or food products
pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) optimization showed that lipid profile was not very influenced by temperature in the range studied (80–160 ◦ C)
Summary
The economic potential of the algae industry is widely recognized. Algae have been consumed for many years in Asian countries and their bioactives have recently gained a considerable interest due to their multiple applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries [1,2,3]. Algae consumption around the world has increased considerably mainly due to the. Asian influence and its cuisine [5], in most developed countries, people dislike eating algae directly as food commodity due to their dirty image and the lack of reliability in regards to non-toxic products. Extracting algae compounds and using them as food ingredients increase consumer acceptance. Bioactive properties of algae components have been investigated and several Two major types of marine algae can be identified: the macroalgae or seaweeds occuping the littoral zone, which included green algae (Chlorophyceae), brown algae (Phaeophyceae) and red algae (Rhodophyceae), and the microalgae found in both benthic and littoral habitats and throughout the ocean waters as phytoplankton [4].
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