Marine Origin Polysaccharides in Drug Delivery Systems

Abstract

Oceans are a vast source of natural substances. In them, we find various compounds with wide biotechnological and biomedical applicabilities. The exploitation of the sea as a renewable source of biocompounds can have a positive impact on the development of new systems and devices for biomedical applications. Marine polysaccharides are among the most abundant materials in the seas, which contributes to a decrease of the extraction costs, besides their solubility behavior in aqueous solvents and extraction media, and their interaction with other biocompounds. Polysaccharides such as alginate, carrageenan and fucoidan can be extracted from algae, whereas chitosan and hyaluronan can be obtained from animal sources. Most marine polysaccharides have important biological properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and anti-inflammatory activity, as well as adhesive and antimicrobial actions. Moreover, they can be modified in order to allow processing them into various shapes and sizes and may exhibit response dependence to external stimuli, such as pH and temperature. Due to these properties, these biomaterials have been studied as raw material for the construction of carrier devices for drugs, including particles, capsules and hydrogels. The devices are designed to achieve a controlled release of therapeutic agents in an attempt to fight against serious diseases, and to be used in advanced therapies, such as gene delivery or regenerative medicine.

Pharmacological, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and diagnostic applications of sulfated polysaccharides from marine algae and bacteria

“…Presence of iduronic acid and sulfated rhamnose makes ulvan unique from that of other marine polysaccharides and accounts for its similarity with mammalian glycosaminoglycans. It shows variations in molecular weight (1.14-2 × 10 6 ), electronic density and charge distribution (Silva et al, 2012a;Cardoso et al, 2016).…”

“…Molecular weight, sulfate content and distribution, introduction of other functional groups, monosaccharide composition and structure of the backbone of ulvan and fucoidan determine the anti-oxidant, anti-coagulant and anti-tumor efficacy of the sulfated polysaccharides. Higher molecular weight accounts for improved anti-coagulant action Kim et al, 2015;Cardoso et al, 2016;Cunha and Grenha, 2016).…”

“…It can be used as a chelating agent owing to its ability to form complexes with metal ions and can prove beneficial in treatment of metal poisoning. Ulvan, isolated from U. lactuca, exhibited antimitotic activity during investigation on Allium cepa meristematic root tip whereas that from Ulvan rigida has demonstrated immunomodulatory activity on murine macrophages (Chiellini and Morelli, 2011;Cardoso et al, 2016;Umapoorani et al, 2016).…”

“…Types of glycosidic linkages between the monomeric units such as β-1,4 or β-1,3 provide a rigid backbone and α-1,2 or α-1,6 glycosidic linkages yield molecule with flexible regions (Ladrat et al, 2014). Polysaccharides have been reported to display an array of biological activities like antioxidant, anticoagulant, anticancer, antiviral, anti-allergic, antiadhesive, anti-angiogenic and anti-inflammatory activities (Posocco et al, 2015;Cardoso et al, 2016). Biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity and stimuliresponsiveness of marine polysaccharides support their utilization in the fabrication of stimuli-responsive "smart" or "intelligent" drug delivery systems.…”

“…Extracellular polysaccharides of commercial importance have been produced from unicellular red algae, Porphyridium cruemtum and P. aerugineum and also from Chlamydomonas mexicana and certain species of green and blue-green algae. Porphyridium polysaccharide has the potential to replace the carrageenan in biomedical field (Laurienzo, 2010;Poli et al, 2010;Ladrat et al, 2014;Cardoso et al, 2016).…”