Bioprospecting of Turbinaria Macroalgae as a Potential Source of Health Protective Compounds

The present study aims to focus on the bioprospecting of marine macroalgae of Turbinaria species, plenteous biomass of the world ocean. Three types of solvents, i.e., H₂O, MeOH/H₂O (80:20, v/v) and hexane/i-PrOH (50:50, v/v), were used for extraction. Both the biological activity and the pattern of present chemicals were characterized. For the cell proliferation assay, the human embryonic kidney 293 cells, cervix/breast/pancreatic adenocarcinoma, and osteosarcoma cells were used. For the antioxidant activity determination, both intracellular assay with human embryonic kidney and cervix adenocarcinoma cells, as well as the biochemical DPPH test, were employed. To complete the information about macroalgae composition, organic compounds were characterized by the liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution tandem mass spectrometry. Attention was concentrated mainly on the lipidomic profile characterization. In spite the fact that any significant antiproliferative effect was not observed for cancer cells, both the Turbinaria species were shown to be good protectors against the oxidative stress of the non-cancer cells. Most of the antioxidants were determined in the hexane/i-PrOH extract. As regards the lipids identified, most of them belonged to the triacylglycerols followed by sphingomyelins, diacylglycerols, and polar (lyso)phospholipids. Additionally to fatty acids with 14, 16 and 18 carbons, also those with odd carbon numbers were frequently present.