Abstract:
Active metabolites and functional ingredients of seaweeds have valuable beneficial health
effects. Sulfated polysaccharides in seaweeds have been increasingly studied over the years in
the pharmaceutical field, given their potential usefulness in applications such as designing of
drug delivery systems for cancer and diabetes. Chnoospora minima is a brown algae belongs to
family scytosiphonaceae that contains Fucoidan as its major polysaccharide constituent. This
study examined the total phenol and antioxidant potential of sulfated polysaccharide isolated
from Chnoospora minima. Antioxidant activities of purified sulfated polysaccharides were
evaluated using 2, 2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging and Ferrous
Reducing Ability of Plasma (FRAP) assays. Total phenolic content was determined using
spectrophotometric technique, based on the Folin-Ciocalteau reagent, and the values were
expressed as Gallic acid equivalence. The total Phenolic content was 1.22±0.22 mg Gallic Acid
Equivalence Weight (GAE)/g of dry mass. The free radical scavenging activity of the sulfated
polysaccharide from Chnoospora minima revealed that the reduction of DPPH occurred in a
concentration-dependent manner with high reductions occurring at the highest concentration.
The radical scavenging activity of sulfated polysaccharide from Chnoospora minima was
0.32±0.22 mg/ml compared to the standard DPPH (IC50=0.0087±0.067 mg/ml). The ferrous
reducing antioxidant power of C. minima was 14.24±5.47 mg Trolox equivalence (TE)/1 g of
sample. According to the results, sulfated polysaccharide from Chnoospora minima showed high
antioxidant thus the extract can be considered as a potential source of natural antioxidants agents.
