Reactive Oxygen Species

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The formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is an unavoidable consequence in aerobic organisms as by products during metabolic respiration (Han et al., 2007, Je et al., 2009). These highly reactive ROS can be considered as strong oxidants and have been shown to induce damage in all cellular macromolecules, such as lipids, proteins and DNA. Over the years dietary polyphenols have been widely studied for their biological activities including antioxidant activity (Ahn et al., 2007, Heo et al., 2009, Kang et al., 2005, Li et al., 2009). Polyphenolic compounds are naturally occurring compounds containing phenolic functionality and this large diverse group of secondary metabolites are exist both in terrestrial and aquatic environments (Shibata et al., 2002, Susanto et al., 2009).

Beside the strong antioxidant properties, these naturally occurring polyphenols are known to have numerous biological activities such as anti inflammatory (Ryu et al., 2008), anti allergic (Lee et al., 2009), anti bacterial (Al-Mola, 2009, Suffredini et al., 2004), anti-plasmin inhibitiory (Fukuyama et al., 1990), matrix metalloproteinase inhibitory (Kim et al., 2006) and anticancer (Kong et al., 2009). The high antioxidant power of polyphenols is generally believed to responsible for these activities. Therefore it is very clear that the possibility of use this active compounds in many industrial applications as functional ingredients. Phlorotannins (brown algal polyphenols) are polyphenolic compounds found exclusively in brown seaweeds. Phlorotannins, a subgroup of tannins, are produced entirely by polymerization of phloroglucinol units (Kang et al., 2007, Koivikko et al., 2005). During last two decades, the roles and functions of phlorotannins have been ...

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... available proteases and carbohydrases. Further they reported that Alcalase and Viscozyme extractes were more effective than the other extracts tested.

With these significant results it is clear that EAE affords big advantage over commonly used classical extraction technique. Taken together, enzyme treatment previous to extraction has resulted in improved yields in the case of bioactive components from seaweeds. In all instances mentioned above, hydrolytic enzymes have been used in different combinations as agents that interact on cell walls, breaking down the structural integrity rendering the intracellular materials more exposed for solvent extraction. Since EAE has attracted growing interest in the extraction of biologically active components, the technique could be explored as a mean to enhance the extraction of particular metabolites from seaweeds.

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