Natural products of cyanobacteria "Spirulina" spp. with deepening in S. "platensis" and its applicability in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and nutraceutical sectors.

Abstract

Spirulina platensis is a cyanobacteria widely used as a dietary supplement due to its many beneficial applications for health and is of great interest in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic sectors. In the latter, the use of phycocyanin (a pigment present in this cyanobacteria) as a natural dye, which also has antioxidant, anti-cancer and antiinflammatory properties, is very common. The genus Spirulina is also of great interest because of the variety of macro and micronutrients it contains, some of which can not be synthesized by the human organism naturally. The aim of this research is to deepen the chemical knowledge of the species S. platensis, using modern techniques of purification and structural analysis (chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectroscopy (MS)). The biomass of S. platensis was obtained by Soxhlet extraction with acetone, followed by filtration and concentration giving a dark product. By column chromatography, eluting with a combination of hexane/ acetone/ methanol, successive fractions of increasing polarity were obtained. Pure metabolites were purified by preparative TLC and were identified by the spectroscopic methods (NMR and MS). Among the isolated metabolites are carotenoids, chlorophylls, fatty acids, xanthophylls, sulfoglycolipid (II) and a new compound, 4- [(2-methylheptyl) oxy] benzenesulfonic acid (platensic acid, III)