Algal Metabolites

Algal secondary metabolites have several biotechnological, pharmaeceutical, industral, cosmetic, and other commercial applications. This new book highlights the recent advances in algal active metabolites, emphasizing their pharmaceutical, therapeutic, nutraceutical, and industral potential. It first provides an introduction to algal metabolites and discusses their applications. It then looks at microalgal- their pharmaeceutical, therapeutic, nutraceutical, and industrial applications. Providing a wealth of information, this book illustrates the diversity of these metabolites from indegeneous marine of freshwater sources, providing a gateway that can enable researchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop novel nontoxic, cost-effective, and highly efficient drugs.

Yet another Springer world-beater, this is the first ever book devoted to the chemical ecology of algae. It covers both marine and freshwater habitats and all types of algae, from seaweeds to phytoplankton. While the book emphasizes the ecological rather than chemical aspects of the field, it does include a unique introductory chapter that serves as a primer on algal natural products chemistry.

Food security and the medicinal needs of billions of people around the world are pressing global issues, and the biodiversity and sustainable utilization of plants is of great significance in this context. Further, ethnobotanical studies are vital in the discovery of new drugs from indigenous medicinal plants, and plants with industrially important metabolites need to be cultivated to meet the growing market demand. In addition, the production of plant metabolites under in vitro conditions also has tremendous possibilities. The totipotency of plant cells plays a valuable role in the sustainable utilization of plant resources through cell, tissue and organ culture. At the same time, production can be enhanced using productive cell lines, treatment with elicitors, changing nutritional parameters and metabolic engineering. This book provides state-of-the-art information on biodiversity, conservation, ethnobotany, various aspects of In vitro secondary metabolite production, bioprospecting from various plant groups and drug discovery. It also discusses methods of extracting and characterizing drug leads from plant sources.​

Key features: The most comprehensive resource available on the biodiversity of algal species, their industrial production processes and their use for human consumption in food, health and varied applications. Emphasis on basic and applied research, addressing aspects of scale-up for commercial exploitation for the development of novel phytochemicals (phytochemicals from algae). Addresses the underexplored and underutilized potential of chemicals from marine sources for health benefits. Each chapter, written by expert contributors from around the world, includes Summary Points, Figures and Tables, as well as up-to-date references. The first book in this two-volume set explores the diversity of algal constituents for health and disease applications. The commercial value of chemicals of value to food and health is about $6 billion annually, of which 30 percent relates to micro and macro algal metabolites and products for health food applications. This comprenhensive volume looks in detail at algal genomics and metabolomics as well as mass production of microalgae. As a whole, the two-volume set covers all micro and macro algal forms and their traditional uses; their constituents which are of value for food, feed, specialty chemicals, bioactive compounds for novel applications, and bioenergy molecules. Bio-business and the market share of algae-based products are also dealt with, providing global perspectives.

Seaweeds are recognized as highly nutritious, and their use in gastronomy is increasing. Their health benefits and their potential to prevent several diseases have also been established. In this Special Issue several health effects are discussed, with more emphasis on their antitumor activity and potential use to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The key bioactive metabolites, from which phlorotannins can be highlighted, are presented, as well as some important in vivo studies. Altogether, the chapters provide in-depth information about the biological activities of seaweed metabolites, contributing to elucidate the health effects of seaweed.