Harnessing Cyanobacteria’s Bioactive Potential: A Sustainable Strategy for Antioxidant Production

: Unsaturated diacylglycerols are a class of antioxidant compounds with the potential to positively impact human health. Their ability to combat oxidative stress through radical scavenger activity underscores their significance in the context of preventive and therapeutic strategies. In this paper we highlight the role of Anabaena flos-aquae as a producer of unsaturated mono and diacylglycerols, and then demonstrate the antioxidant activity of its methanolic extract, which has as its main components a variety of acylglycerol analogues. This finding was revealed using a sustainable strategy in which the One Strain Many Compounds (OSMAC) cultivation in microscale was coupled with a bioinformatic approach to analyze a large dataset of mass spectrometry data using the molecular networking analyses. This strategy reduces time and costs, avoiding long and expensive steps of purification and obtaining informative data on the metabolic composition of the extracts. This study highlights the role of Anabaena as a sustainable and green source of novel bioactive compounds

Biological Activities of Different Sponge Extracts

Over the last few years, samples from the marine environment have been investigated for different metabolites with interesting biological activities. Marine sponges, from which more than 50% of marine natural compounds have been isolated, are a rich source of compounds with citotoxic and antitumor properties. The antioxidant activity of compounds isolated from marine sponges is poorly studied. Aqueous extracts of different sponge species (Smenospongia sp., Axinelta corrugata, Cinachyrella sp., Svenzea flava, Plakortis simplex, Ircina felix, Piylocaulis sp, Tedania ignis) were screened for antioxidant power using three different assays: DPPH (1,1 -diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazy) radical scavenging, Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) and β-carotene bleaching (BCB) test. Results showed as Plakartis simplex extract possesses the highest ferric reducing antioxidant power, lipid peroxidation inhibition capacity and the lowest IC50 value. This results are consistent also with the high “putative phenolic” content shown by Folin-Ciocalteu test. A considerable biological activity was also observed for lrcinafelìx, Axinella corrugata, and Cinachyrella extracts, even if their activities in the different tests was not directly comparable, and not positively related with results obtained by Folin-Ciocalteu method. In fact the correlation (R2 index) among all antioxidant tests was low (data not shown), suggesting that extract compositions may be signifìcantly different and that it is connected with extract specifie biological activity. Further studies will be focused on developing standardized methods for antioxidant determination in marine sponges and on identification of marine antioxidant compounds mainly responsible for the biological activity