Cyanobacteria—From the Oceans to the Potential Biotechnological and Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotic organisms which represent a significant source of novel, bioactive, secondary metabolites, and they are also considered an abundant source of bioactive compounds/drugs, such as dolastatin, cryptophycin 1, curacin toyocamycin, phytoalexin, cyanovirin-N and phycocyanin. Some of these compounds have displayed promising results in successful Phase I, II, III and IV clinical trials. Additionally, the cyanobacterial compounds applied to medical research have demonstrated an exciting future with great potential to be developed into new medicines. Most of these compounds have exhibited strong pharmacological activities, including neurotoxicity, cytotoxicity and antiviral activity against HCMV, HSV-1, HHV-6 and HIV-1, so these metabolites could be promising candidates for COVID-19 treatment. Therefore, the effective large-scale production of natural marine products through synthesis is important for resolving the existing issues associated with chemical isolation, including small yields, and may be necessary to better investigate their biological activities. Herein, we highlight the total synthesized and stereochemical determinations of the cyanobacterial bioactive compounds. Furthermore, this review primarily focuses on the biotechnological applications of cyanobacteria, including applications as cosmetics, food supplements, and the nanobiotechnological applications of cyanobacterial bioactive compounds in potential medicinal applications for various human diseases are discussed.

Light and Autofluorescence, Multitasking Features in Living Organisms

“…In particular, it is to recall that Spirulina species belong to cyanobacteria and contain both chlorophyll and phycocyanins, the respective green and blue pigments involved in photosynthesis, making Spirulina species to be commonly defined as a blue-green alga. Phycocyanins exhibit special spectral properties in term of high absorbance and fluorescence yields, accounting for their photoprotection role in cyanobacteria and for more general strong antioxidant properties, which have stimulated the use of phycocyanins in nutriceutics and pharmacology, besides the use in food and pharmaceutics as a mere dye [15,50,51,[54][55][56][57][58][59]. The absorption and fluorescence properties of purified phycocyanin and allophycocyanin have been also analyzed by time-resolved techniques to investigate ultrafast kinetic components of excitation energy transfer in phycobilisome, with the aim to improve the collection of solar energy for photovoltaic applications [15].…”

“…The main fluorophores described in this section are summarized in Table 2. [10,22,23] Abiotic stress in higher plants [39] Phycocyanin Allo-phycocyanin 550-670 nm 650-700 nm Light harvesting, efficient energy conversion, photoprotection in cyanobacteria [58] Food and pharmaceutic additives [15,50,51,[54][55][56][57][58][59] Models to improve photovoltaic applications [15] * Other optical parameters besides absorption/fluorescence may have been used in some applications; excitation/emission ranges may vary depending on measurement conditions.…”

Antimicrobial Activity of the Heterocytous Cyanobacterium Westiellopsis prolifica and Assessment of Its Microcystin–LR Biosynthesis

“…Cyanobacteria, in general, possess structurally diverse metabolites with immense bioactive potential for use in drug synthesis (Sharma et al, 2011;Galica et al, 2017;Khalifa et al, 2021).…”

“…The rapid growth of resistance in pathogenic bacteria and fungi has recently led to the necessity for a new strategy in drug development by depending on antimicrobial products of natural origin (e.g., El-Sheekh et al, 2008;Righini & Roberti, 2019;Besednova et al, 2020). Members of the phylum Cyanobacteria, in particular the heterocytous genera and taxa, have been characterized as keystone producers of biologically active and structurally diverse compounds with high-value pharmaceutical importance (El-Sheekh et al, 2008;Saurav et al, 2019;Khalifa et al, 2021). However, our understanding of the antimicrobial potential of the dryland-inhabiting taxa, such as the poorly studied Westiellopsis prolifica (Hapalosiphonaceae, Nostocales), remains scarce in this area of research.…”

Thirtieth Anniversary of the Discovery of Laxaphycins. Intriguing Peptides Keeping a Part of Their Mystery

“…These marine natural products can be used in applications such as drugs in the fight against cancer, virus, or bacterial infections but also as cosmetics [1][2][3][4]. Cyanobacteria that represent at least 50% of the aquatic biomass are effective producers of secondary metabolites that can be used as therapeutic agents [5][6][7][8], among which peptides isolated from various strains all over the world [9]. These peptides are often synthesized by non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) or mixed biosynthetic pathways that involve polyketide synthase (PKS) operating in conjunction with NRPS [10][11][12].…”