CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND BIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF MACROALGAE EXTRACTS

Marine species are a rich source of bioactive molecules and among them, it is known that marine algae produce different secondary metabolites for which different biological activities such as: immunomodulatory (Raposo et al., 2016), antioxidant (Fisch et al., 2003) and antimicrobial (Pinteus et al., 2015) were demostrated. The aim of this study was chemical charac- terize the extracts of three macroalgae species: Carpodesmia crinite (Duby, Orellana & Sansón, 2019), Carpodesmia brachy- carpa (J. Agardh, Orellana & Sansón 2019, WoRMS, 2023), Ericaria brachycarpa (J. Agardh, Molinari & Guiry, 2020), Asparagopsis taxiformis (Delile) Trevisan 1845) to evaluate also their biological activities. The characterization of the secondary metabolites was performed by HPLC-MS and showed higher meroterpenoids levels. Then, the extracts were tested on the Arbacia lixula sea urchin and against the bacterial strains Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. In the first case results showed a modulation in total and differential cell count demonstrating their involvement in immunity responses. In the second case important antimicrobial activities were observed against both bacterial strains tested. The results obtained, although preliminary, are certainly encouraging to understand better the biological potentiality of these metabolites.