“…Sulfated polysaccharides (SPs) make up a group of biopolymers that occur in a great variety of marine organisms (Stephen, 1995;Hayashi et al, 1996;Mourão and Pereira, 1999;Aquino et al, 2005;Pomin and Mourão, 2008;Robic et al, 2009;Rodrigues et al, 2009a;Mestechkina and Shcherbukhin, 2010;Rodrigues et al, 2010). In red seaweed, SPs are known as sulfated galactans, and are found in carrageenans and agarans (Melo et al, 2002;Marinho-Soriano, 2006;Pomin and Mourão, 2008;Campo et al, 2009;Silva et al, 2010;Rodrigues et al, 2011a). These highly charged macromolecules (presence of sulfate groups) exhibit chemical structures of complex and heterogeneous nature, playing an important role in ionic, mechanical and osmotic functions, and are constituents of the extracellular matrix of marine algae (Kloareg and Quatrano, 1988).…”