Active Principles which are Important to Human Health Obtained from Ceramium Rubrum - Seaweed in the Black Sea

Abstract

The red algae Ceramium rubrum, Div. Rhodophyta, Subcl. Florideophycidae, Fam. Ceramiaceae (Huds. ) grows abundantly and spontaneously in the Black Sea. Rhodophyta are the source to produce agar-agar and carrageen used to improve the chemical and physical characteristics of several industrial products and in the production of tissue culture media. The harvesting was made by the Romanian Institute for Marine Research and Development from an unpolluted area in the Black Sea. Dry algae Ceramium rubrum were analyzed in the first step in order to identify active principles which are important to human health and then by IR and UV-VIS spectrometry, Atomic absorption spectrometry for heavy metals and pesticides, and finally HPLC. The paper reports the correlated results of UV-VIS spectrometry and HPLC analysis of algae extract versus ?-carotene, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b standards. A chromatographic method was applied for optimum separation of ?-carotene, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b standards with Photodiode Array and Fluorescence Detectors. In the paper we present too, a comparative study regarding antioxidative capacity of these macrophyte algae, Ceramium rubrum, specifife for Romanian Black Sea Coast. For antioxidant capacity of algae extracts, chemiluminescence method had been used. The results confirm that could be correlated with the high level antioxidant activity of these species, which relieve the possibility to enlarge the options to use these natural vegetal resources from Black Sea Coast in different degenerative diseases therapy.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n1s2p253