No abstract

Nutritional and mineral compositions were evaluated for five seaweed species collected from Red Sea during the winter of 2008. These species were Dictyota divaricata, Padina tetrastromatica, Sargassum subrepandum and Turbinaria triquetra from Phaeophyta and Caulerpa serrulata from Chlorophyta. Moisture contents in algal samples were from 10.6g.100g-1 in Caulerpa serrulata to 23.6g.100g-1 in Turbinaria triquetra. Other species had moisture contents more close to C. serrulata. Total dietary fiber was the most abundant component in these algae (18.6% to 55.41%), followed by ash content (17.057 to 29.573 g.100g-1) and carbohydrates (14.6 to 45.6 100g-1). Proteins in all species were from 3.87% to 14.48%. D. divaricata had the highest content of total lipids (10.51%); meanwhile other species showed (4.24-1.62%). The five algal species contained large amounts of Na, Ca, K and Fe, moderate amounts of Zn, and were lower in Cu, Cd, Ni and Mn. Pb was measured as 0.001 ppm in P. tetrastromatica and was absent in the other species.

No abstract

Cancer is considered as one of the major health problems worldwide. So far, no completely effective method has been found for cancer treatment. Therefore, the rise of using natural products has been proposed as an alternative therapy in this regard. For many years, the seaweed has been a source of many functional bioactive compounds including polysaccharides, polyphenols, pigments, terpenes, and many others. These compounds have shown many bioactivities including anticancer activity against different kinds of cancer. Bioactive compounds obtained from the seaweed have been demonstrated to cause apoptosis in cancer cells and trigger cell cycle arrest with low cytotoxicity against normal cells. In this review, it was attempted to shed light on the anticancer activity of some seaweed-derived bioactive compounds.