Marine Medicinal Glycomics

Glycomics is an international project that analyses systematically and comparatively the overall and/or specific structural and biological properties of carbohydrates, also known as sugars or glycans, within a repertoire from a given type of cell, tissue, organism, kingdom, or even from a certain environment, as found under specific conditions. Glycomics is one of the latest omics projects to be launched into biology. This was because carbohydrates had been primarily considered as a mere class of structural or energetic molecules. Besides that, structural and functional studies in glycomics are more challenging than other projects, and analytical limitations in glycobiology have impaired the progress. However, with the development of technology, and mostly through recent scientific achievements, innumerous vital biological functions have been uncovered and attributed to the sugars. Moreover, certain glycans may also exhibit effective medicinal properties which have in turn awakened a great interest by pharmaceutical companies.This book compiles and illustrates some of these recent achievements concerning the principle examples of marine sugars with medical properties, such as chitin, chitosan, sulphated polysaccharides, and glycoconjugates. Their therapeutic actions are very broad since they comprise beneficial effects in many systems such as inflammation, coagulation, thrombosis, cancer growth/metastasis, and vascular biology. Additional information about the enzymatic synthesis, chemically modified derivatives, relevance of composing units, and other biochemical properties of these marine medicinal glycans are also discussed herein.

Glycans (carbohydrate chains) of marine creatures are rich and diverse in polysaccharides, glycoproteins, and glycolipids. The chains that are metabolized by glycan-related enzymes (glycosyltransferases and glycosidases) are recognized by glycan-binding proteins (lectins) which regulate cellular processes such as growth, differentiation, and death. Marine glycomics that involves the genome and transcriptome accelerates our understanding of the evolution of glycans, glycan-related enzymes, and lectins. From 2017 to 2019, the Special Issue “Marine Glycobiology, Glycomics and Lectins” of the journal Marine Drugs published scientific articles and reviews, on the background of “glycobiology”—that is, glycan-based biosciences. The aim was to promote the discovery of novel biomolecules that contribute to drug development and clinical studies. This has great potential for establishing connections between the fields of both human health and marine life sciences. This book contains 11 scientific papers representing current topics in comprehensive glycosciences related to therapeutic agents from marine natural products, as outlined.

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the publication of papers on the chemistry, biology, and potential clinical uses of marine glycosides. Indeed, more than half of the papers published in this field are less than a decade old. Glycosides have been isolated from species as diverse as algae, fungi, anthozoans, and echinoderms. Even fish of the genus Pardachirus produce glycosides, which they use as shark repellents.The major interest in these compounds as potential drugs stems from their broad spectrum of biological effects. They have been shown to have antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, immune modulatory, and anticancer effects. The anticancer effects of marine glycosides include cell cycle suppression, the induction of apoptosis, and the inhibition of migration, invasion, and metastasis, as well as antiangiogenesis. Marine glycosides influence membrane permeability and have been shown to influence membrane transport at the molecular level through effects on transport carriers and pumps, as well as effects on ligand-gated and voltage-gated channels. Various marine glycosides have been shown to activate sphingomyelinase and ceramide synthesis, to inhibit topoisomerase activity, receptor tyrosine kinase activity, and multidrug resistance protein activity, and to antagonize eicosanoid receptors.This Special Issue covers the entire scope of marine organism-derived glycosides that are of potential value as pharmaceutical agents or leads. These include, but are not limited to, tetracyclic triterpene glycosides, other triterpene glycosides, steroid glycosides, and glycosides of non-isoprenoid aglycones.

Marine glycobiology is an emerging and exciting area in the field of science and medicine. Glycobiology, the study of the structure and function of carbohydrates and carbohydrate-containing molecules, is fundamental to all biological systems and represents a developing field of science that has made huge advances in the last half-century. This book revolutionizes the concept of marine glycobiology, focusing on the latest principles and applications of marine glycobiology and their relationships.

The cell surface of fungi, bacteria and sea organisms is highly glycosylated. These glycans are oligo- or polysaccharide molecules that can be secreted or attached to protein or lipids forming glycoconjugates. They present extraordinary structural diversity that could explain their involvement in many fundamental cellular processes, including growth, differentiation and morphogenesis. Considerable advances have been made on the structural elucidation of these glycans. Their primary structures were determined based on a combination of mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy techniques. The combination of these sensitive and powerful techniques has allowed us to increase our structural knowledge of a wide variety of glycans expressed by different fungi, bacteria and sea organisms.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Snake Venom Metalloproteinases" that was published in Toxins

This book provides the latest comprehensive methods for isolation and other novel techniques for marine product development. Furthermore, this book offers knowledge on the biological, medical, and industrial applications of marine-derived medicinal food substances. There has been a tremendous increase in the products derived from marine organisms for commercial application in industries every year. Functional foods of medicinal value are particularly in demand as new technology allows the stabilization of natural ingredients and their availability in pure forms to solve various human diseases. Marine flora and fauna have essential elements and trace minerals that nurture various hormones produced in the endocrine system to regulate the respective metabolisms, thereby providing a safe and healthy life to humans. The overall presentation and clear demarcation of the contents by worldwide contributions is a novel entry point into the market of medicinal foods from the sea. The exploration of marine habitats for novel materials are discussed throughout the book. The exploration and exploitation of the biochemistry of sea flora and fauna are limited, and this book extends the research possibilities into numerous marine habitats. Various approaches for extracting and applying the flora and fauna are discussed. This book will be of value to researchers, marine biotechnologists, and medical practitioners, due to the vast information, as well as industrial and medical applications of marine substances all in one place.

Industrial Applications of Marine Biopolymers presents different classes of marine biopolymers and their industrial applications, demonstrating the precious value of ocean resources to society. This timely volume discusses the exceedingly useful polymers derived from these materials that are biodegradable, biocompatible, and at times water soluble. Direct use or chemically modified forms of such biomaterials have many chemical sites, making them suitable for varied types of industrial applications. In addition, this book also addresses current global challenges of conservation, including extended drought conditions and the need for improved agricultural methods, together with new bio-medical developments. It is suitable for anyone who has an interest in the industrial applications of biopolymers.

Glycans play essential roles in diverse biological and etiological processes and their structural complexity endow various functions. The glycome is the entire set of glycans produced by an individual organism. As the glycan microarray emerged, a good amount of knowledge has been obtained in understanding the functions of glycans. However, limited accessibility of glycans is a major obstacle to the functional glycomics study. Although isolation from biology samples provided some structures, the low abundance of glycans obtained and the difficulty in complete structural assignment restricted the subsequent assay. To circumvent this limitation, many synthetic strategies, including chemical, enzymatic and chemo-enzymatic ones have been developed to make libraries of structurally defined complex glycans available. The glycans provided by these techniques combined with high-throughput glycoarray techniques have broadened and deepened our understanding about functional glycomics. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive review of the current state of the synthetic glycome and a brief introduction of the application of the synthetic glycome in glycoarray assay. Accordingly, synthetic strategies toward generating glycans with comprehensive structures as well as the glycoarrays to unveil the glycan functions are described in this book.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Advances in Marine Chitin and Chitosan" that was published in Marine Drugs