Biologically Active Compounds from Marine Algae

Abstract

Natural products have been used as treatment of various diseases from time immemorial and even nowadays majority of commercially available drugs on the market are derived from natural compounds. Ocean provides a home to a number of marine organisms including algae and shelter endless sources of new natural biologically active compounds. Marine algae had to cope with harsh stress conditions, which gave them outstanding variability and made them one of the major sources of compounds with unique chemical features and with exceptional biological activity. Amongst these compounds belong sulphated polysaccharides, special pigments, halogenated compounds, mycosporine-like amino acids and many other compounds beneficial to human health. Despite the tremendous amount of publications declaring impressive biological activities of algal compounds, so far only one of them was approved as antiviral drug. Nevertheless, with the advancements in technology, soon other will follow.

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