Enzyme-assistant extraction (EAE) of bioactive components: A useful approach for recovery of industrially important metabolites from seaweeds: A review

Over the years, the biological activities of seaweeds could have gained a considerable research interest because of their specific functional compounds, which may not be available in land plants. Thus, efforts at discovery of novel metabolites from seaweeds over the past years have yielded a considerable amount of new active compounds. In addition, studies about the extraction of active compounds from natural products have attracted special attention in the last recent years. Potent biologically active compounds of seaweeds have been demonstrated to play a significant role in prevention of certain degenerative diseases such as cancer, inflammation, arthritis, diabetes and hypertension. Therefore, seaweed derived active components, whose immense biochemical diversity looks like to become a rich source of novel chemical entities for the use as functional ingredients in many industrial applications such as functional foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmeceuticals. Thus, the interest in the extraction of active compounds from seaweeds is obvious. However, the physical and chemical barriers of the plant material become the key drawbacks of such extraction process. Therefore, enhanced release and recovery of active compounds attached to the cells have been addressed. Taken together, the aim of this communication is to discuss the potential use of enzyme treatment as a tool to improve the extraction efficiency of bioactive compounds from seaweeds. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.