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Structural characterization and comparative biomedical properties of phloroglucinol from Indian brown seaweeds

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Abstract

In the present study, phloroglucinol, a phenolic derivative, was extracted from the brown seaweeds Sargassum wightii, Sargassum tenerrimum and Turbinaria conoides. The secondary metabolite purified by reversed phase-high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), fluorescence spectroscopy, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight/mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS) and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Phloroglucinol from S. tenerrimum exhibited higher total antioxidant (453.3 mg AscAE g−1), DPPH-scavenging (71.07 %), H2O2-scavenging (89.7 %) and metal chelating (14.28 %) activities. Anticoagulant activity was maximum in phloroglucinol from T. conoides (APTT 38.2 s, PT 22.7 s and FC 1.92 g dL−1). Phloroglucinol from S. wightii showed maximum lymphocyte migration inhibition (0.8 mm). Cytotoxicity and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage against MCF-7 cells was high in phloroglucinol from T. conoides (IC50 10.74 μg mL−1 and 56.17 %). These findings suggest that phloroglucinol from the selected brown seaweeds could be a rich functional food with appreciable biomedical properties.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the CARE fellowship provided by Chettinad Academy of Research and Education. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the Director, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, CARE, for his valuable suggestions and guidance. The authors also acknowledge Prof. P. Gautam, Anna University, Chennai, for providing the HPLC facility.

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Correspondence to Ramachandran Saravanan.

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Ramachandran Karthik, Venkatesan Manigandan and Ravi Sheeba contributed equally to this work.

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ESM 1

Fig. S1 RP-HPLC chromatogram of phloroglucinol from selected brown seaweeds showing a retention time of 4.8 min. Fig. S2 (a) UV-visible spectrum of purified phloroglucinol fraction from selected brown seaweeds; S2 (b) Fluorescence spectrum of phloroglucinol from selected brown seaweeds. Fig. S3 FT-IR spectrum of standard phloroglucinol and purified phloroglucinol fraction from selected brown seaweeds. (DOC 545 kb)

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Karthik, R., Manigandan, V., Sheeba, R. et al. Structural characterization and comparative biomedical properties of phloroglucinol from Indian brown seaweeds. J Appl Phycol 28, 3561–3573 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-016-0851-2

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