Codium bernabei is a green alga that grows on Chilean coasts. The composition of its structural polysaccharides is still unknown. Hence, the aim of this work is to isolate and characterize the hot water extracted polysaccharide fractions. For this purpose, the water extracts were further precipitated in alcohol (TPs) and acid media (APs), respectively. Both fractions were characterized using different physicochemical techniques such as GC-MS, GPC, FTIR, TGA, and SEM. It is confirmed that the extracted fractions are mainly made of sulfated galactan unit, with a degree of sulfation of 19.3% (TPs) and 17.4% (ATs) and a protein content of 3.5% in APs and 15.6% in TPs. Other neutral sugars such as xylose, glucose, galactose, fucose, mannose, and arabinose were found in a molar ratio (0.05:0.6:1.0:0.02:0.14:0.11) for TPs and (0.05:0.31:1.0:0.03:0.1:0.13) for ATs. The molecular weight of the polysaccharide samples was lower than 20 kDa. Both polysaccharides were thermally stable (Tonset > 190 °C) and showed antioxidant activity according to the ABTS^•+ and DPPH tests, where TPs fractions had higher scavenging activity (35%) compared to the APs fractions. The PT and APTTS assays were used to measure the anticoagulant activity of the polysaccharide fractions. In general, the PT activity of the TPs and APs was not different from normal plasma values. The exception was the TPs treatment at 1000 µg mL⁻¹ concentration. The APTTS test revealed that clotting time for both polysaccharides was prolonged regarding normal values at 1000 µg mL⁻¹. Finally, the antitumor test in colorectal carcinoma (HTC-116) cell line, breast cancer (MCF-7) and human leukemia (HL-60) cell lines showed the cytotoxic effect of TPs and APs. Those results suggest the potential biotechnological application of sulfate galactan polysaccharides isolated from a Chilean marine resource.

From the fruiting body of ectomycorrhizal fungi Cortinarius xiphidipus, sterols were identified from the crude extract and the cytotoxic effect of ergosta-4, 6, 8(14), 22-tetraen-3-one (ergone) was evaluated. Ten sterols including ergosta-3,5,7,9(11),22-pentaene, (22E)-ergosta-5,7,9(11),22-tetraen-3b-ol, (3β,22E)-ergosta-5,7,22-trien-3-ol, (22E)-ergosta-7,22-dien-3-ol, neoergosterol, (3β)-ergosta-5,8-dien-3-ol, (3β)-ergosta-7-en-3-ol, stigmasterol, stigmasterol 22,23-dihydro and (22E)-ergosta-4,6,8(14),22-tetraen-3-one were identified from the crude extract. The cytotoxic activity of the sterol fraction containing ergosta-4, 6, 8(14), 22-tetraen-3-one was assessed on four tumour cell lines (Neuro-2a, Saos-2, MCF7 and LNCaP-C42). The cytotoxic activity against the four tumour cell lines tested, being Neuro-2a and Saos-2 the most sensitive, with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of 20.8 ± 2.2 and 27.8 ± 1.0 μg/mL, respectively. This is the first report of this Antarctic fungi collected in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region. This work represents a potential source for the development of anticancer drugs.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible and progressive neurodegenerative disorder that slowly destroys memory. The precise mechanism of AD is still not entirely understood and remains under discussion; it is believed to be a multifactorial disease in which a number of mechanisms are involved in its pathogenesis. Worldwide, near 37 million people suffer from the effects of AD. As a cause of death for elderly, it is predicted that AD will rank third in the coming years, just behind cancer and heart disease. Unfortunately, AD remains an incurable condition. Despite the devastating problems associated with AD, there are only four FDA approved drugs for palliative treatment of this pathology. Hence, renewed scientific efforts are required not only to uncover more insights into the AD process but also to develop more efficient pharmacological tools against this disease. Due to the complexity and multiple mechanisms at play in the progression of AD, the development of drugs by rational design is extremely difficult. The existing drugs to fight against Alzheimer’s have had limited success, mainly due to their ability to modulate only one of the mechanisms involved in AD. As opposed to single-targeted strategies, the identification of small molecules able to affect multiple pathways involved in Alzheimer’s is a promising strategy to develop more efficient medicines against this disease. Central to existing efforts to develop pharmaceuticals controlling AD is the discovery of new chemicals displaying strong neuroactivity. Benzofurans are privileged oxygen containing heterocycles that have a strong neuroprotective behavior, inhibiting several of the important events involved in the AD process. In this review, an approach is presented that relies on expanding the neuroprotective chemical space of benzofuran scaffolds by accessing them from Andean–Patagonian fungi and synthetic sources (chemical libraries). The exploration of the neuroprotective chemical space of these scaffolds has the potential to allow the discovery of substitution patterns that display multi-target neuroactivity against multiple events involved in AD. This benzofuran chemical framework will establish a multi-target chemical space that could set the basis for the development of super drugs against AD.