Microalgae have recently attracted considerable interest worldwide, due to their extensive application potential in the renewable energy, biopharmaceutical, and nutraceutical industries. Microalgae are renewable, sustainable, and economical sources of biofuels, bioactive medicinal products, and food ingredients. Several microalgae species have been investigated for their potential as value-added products with remarkable pharmacological and biological qualities. As biofuels, they are a perfect substitute to liquid fossil fuels with respect to cost, renewability, and environmental concerns. Microalgae have a significant ability to convert atmospheric CO2 to useful products such as carbohydrates, lipids, and other bioactive metabolites. Although microalgae are feasible sources for bioenergy and biopharmaceuticals in general, some limitations and challenges remain, which must be overcome to upgrade the technology from pilot-phase to industrial level. The most challenging and crucial issues are enhancing microalgae growth rate and product synthesis, dewatering algae culture for biomass production, pretreating biomass, and optimizing the fermentation process in case of algal bioethanol production. The present review describes the advantages of microalgae for the production of biofuels and various bioactive compounds and discusses culturing parameters.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12934-018-0879-x.pdf

The promising future of microalgae: current status, challenges, and optimization of a sustainable and renewable industry for biofuels, feed, and other products

Biological activities of chitosan and chitooligosaccharides

Chitosan oligosaccharide: Biological activities and potential therapeutic applications

Two centuries after the discovery of chitin, it is widely accepted that this biopolymer is an important biomaterial in many aspects. Numerous studies on chitin have focused on its biomedical applications. In this review, various aspects of chitin research including sources, structure, biosynthesis, chitinolytic enzyme, chitin binding protein, genetic engineering approach to produce chitin, chitin and evolution, and a wide range of applications in bio- and nanotechnology will be dealt with.

Chitin Research Revisited

Chitin and its derivatives—as a potential resource as well as multiple functional substrates—have generated attractive interest in various fields such as biomedical, pharmaceutical, food and environmental industries, since the first isolation of chitin in 1811. Moreover, chitosan and its chitooligosaccharides (COS) are degraded products of chitin through enzymatic and acidic hydrolysis processes; and COS, in particular, is well suited for potential biological application, due to the biocompatibility and nontoxic nature of chitosan. In this review, we investigate the current bioactivities of chitin derivatives, which are all correlated with their biomedical properties. Several new and cutting edge insights here may provide a molecular basis for the mechanism of chitin, and hence may aid its use for medical and pharmaceutical applications.

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/11/12/5152/pdf

Dai-Nghiep Ngo

Papers

Chitin oligosaccharides inhibit oxidative stress in live cells

Production of chitin oligosaccharides with different molecular weights and their antioxidant effect in RAW 264.7 cells

Aminoethyl chitooligosaccharides inhibit the activity of Angiotensin converting enzyme

Acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity of novel chitooligosaccharide derivatives

Protective effects of aminoethyl-chitooligosaccharides against oxidative stress in mouse macrophage RAW 264.7 cells.