1. Introduction
Marine organisms are an important source of proteins and provide a broad range of health-promoting bioactive compounds with multiple applications in diverse biotechnological and pharmacological sectors such as human health, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, well-being, and even animal production [
1,
2]. Microorganisms included in the phytoplankton such as the cyanobacteria and microalgae are underexploited as source of bioactive compounds [
3,
4,
5]. Those microorganisms are of great interest since they are highly taxonomically diverse, showing a complex evolutionary history (as compared, e.g., with land plants). Their ecophysiology diversity confers a high metabolic plasticity to respond and adapt to a changing environment by producing bioactive secondary metabolites (reviewed in Saide et al. [
6]). Marine planktonic cyanobacteria and microalgae are able to synthetize a huge amount of potential bioactive compounds including pigments, lipids, glycolipids, alkaloids, terpenoids, ribosomal and non-ribosomal peptides, polyketides, phenolic acids, vitamins, flavonoids and macrolides, among others [
4,
6,
7,
8,
9], but in many occasions the active principles are yet unknown (Lauritano et al. 2016; [
10,
11]. A great advantage of using microalgae lies on their relatively easy growing and building-up of high biomass in short generation time. The ability to produce bioactive compounds is species-specific and depends on several factors such as the environmental parameters (growth medium, temperature, light intensity, pH), length of the growth phase, and treatment of the biomass before the extraction [
10,
12,
13,
14,
15].
Pharmacological and biological activities have been reported for almost all secondary metabolites produced by microalgae. Those properties included, among others, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and antialgal activities [
16,
17,
18,
19,
20], antioxidant [
21,
22], anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities [
9,
10,
23,
24,
25,
26], anti-proliferative and anticancer activity [
12,
27,
28,
29]. Moreover, compounds derived from microalgae are useful for the prevention and treatment of other human pathologies such as diabetes, hypertension, artherosclerosis and osteoporosis [
6]. Microalgae derived products have also been applied to the aquaculture industry [
30,
31]. These organisms are included as food supplements because of their nutritional values and their immunomodulatory properties to mitigate stressful conditions in crustacean and fish production [
32,
33].
Bacterial and viral diseases are one of the major aquaculture challenges responsible, in some cases, of high mortalities and important economic losses. Aquaculture fish are affected by several groups of pathogenic viruses such as the birnavirus (IPNV), orthomyxovirus (ISAV), rhabdovirus (SVCV, IHNV and VHSV), adenovirus and herpesvirus (reviewed in Kim and Leong [
34]). In particular, the spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) is responsible of elevated mortalities worldwide in carp culture [
35] and requires notification to the Office of International Epizootic (OIE) when detected [
36]. Although it causes substantial economic losses to the aquaculture industry, there are no effective therapies for its prevention and treatment [
37,
38]. The major bacterial diseases in aquaculture animals include
Aeromonas sp. and
Pseudomonas sp. in many freshwater species, or
Vibrio sp. in marine ones [
39,
40,
41]. In particular,
Aeromonas hydrophyla infection affects different freshwater fish species such as common carps, goldfish, eel, catfish and tilapia [
42] and is also described as an emergent pathogen for the cultured freshwater shrimp
Litopenaeus vannamei [
43]. Other opportunistic bacteria such as
Micrococcus luteus can also induce lethal infections when the animal is immunologically compromised [
44]. In this context, bioactive compounds from microalgae emerge as a potential source of antiviral components [
45,
46,
47] and are also a plausible alternative to antibiotics to treat bacterial infections [
10,
48,
49,
50].
Microalgae also have the ability to induce immunomodulation in fish and confer protection against bacterial infections [
33,
51,
52,
53]. The identification and isolation of compounds with anti-inflammatory activity from microalgae are of great interest for human health but also for aquaculture production [
54,
55,
56]. The control of the inflammatory process is relevant since it is involved in many physiological processes such as inflammatory disorders, immune-related diseases and infections [
57,
58,
59]. Microalgae compounds with anti-inflammatory properties include carotenoids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) such as eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (EPA and DHA, respectively) and certain sulphated polysaccharides although other bioactive chemicals are still unknown [
10,
60].
Available studies on exploring bioactive compounds in microalgae usually employ diatoms, green algae and dinoflagellates among other groups, but often focus on a limited number of species or bioactivity tests [
61]. The screening of a wide range of taxonomic groups and assays is rarely found in the literature [
10,
13,
62]. In that sense, culture collections with different algal classes, life styles and habitats provide biological material of enormous interest to identify new sources of bioactive molecules. These resources enable to undergo different assays under the same conditions, a first step towards finding bioactive fractions and molecules with potential applications in diverse fields, such as biomedicine or aquaculture.
The present study followed this approach. Taking advantage of the microalgal strains maintained in the CCVIEO culture collection (IEO-CSIC, Spain), a number of phytoplankton groups (9 taxonomic classes) were selected, including toxic dinoflagellate species, and 33 strains were screened for their bioactivity. These tests comprised antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities. To our knowledge, many of the organisms included in the present study have not been tested in previous similar works. The obtained results provided some promising findings, concerning in particular antibacterial activity that would deserve to be explored further in-depth for their potential applications in human and animal health.
4. Materials and Methods
4.1. The CCVIEO Collection of Harmful Marine Microalgae
The Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC) maintains a collection of marine microalgae (CCVIEO culture collection) constituted by about 250 strains and more than 80 species of microalgae isolated from the Spanish coasts but also from other parts of the world. The collection includes several species associated with harmful algal blooms (Fraga et al. 2010;
https://vgohab.com/en/coleccion-de-cultivos/).
A total of 33 species from 9 different classes were selected in the present study, including strains isolated from the Atlantic coasts (eg.
Chaetoceros dichatoensis and
Tetraselmis convolutae), some of them responsible for harmful algal blooms (e.g.
Alexandrium minutum and
Dinophysis acuminata). The distribution of strains in each class was as follows: Bacillariophyceae (4), Chlorophyceae (1), Cryptophyceae (3), Dictyochophyceae (1), Dinophyceae (20), Euglenophyceae (1), Prasinophyceae (1), Prymnesiophyceae (1), and Raphidophyceae (1). The information about species and the strain codes used in the manuscript are specified in
Table 1.
4.2. Culture and Preparation of Microalgae Extracts
The selected species were grown under specific culture parameters. The cultures were scaled up to a final volume of 1,600 mL. The culture parameters were optimized (temperature, light and composition of culture medium) for each species (
Table 1). Cultures were grown in three culture chambers kept at 16 °C, 19 °C and 25 °C, under different light intensities depending on the requirements of each strain. A photon irradiance between 80-150 μE m2s
-1 of PAR (LED illumination), measured with a QSL-100 irradiometer (Biospherical Instruments Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) and at a 12:12 L:D photoperiod was used (
Table 1). The cultures were centrifuged (17,000 g for 10 min) to obtain the entire microalgae biomass. The protocol for organic extraction in freeze dried biomass from the studied strains followed that used for cyanobacteria by Edwards et al. [
108].
Some modifications were introduced due to the lower biomass collected in the case of dinoflagellates. The bioactive extracts were obtained from the pellets following a protocol based on H2O-methanol and CH2Cl2-methanol extraction. Briefly, cultures were centrifuged (3,000 g, 20 min, 4 °C) and the resulting pellets frozen at -20 °C. Samples were lyophilized during 48 h, and final weights were recorded in each case. Afterwards, 20 mL of methanol were added to the extracts on 50 mL tubes, sonicated on an ultrasonic bath (3 min) and centrifuged again (7,500 g, 10 min, 4 °C), these steps being repeated three times. Methanol was fully evaporated on a rotary evaporator (Büchi R-200; Flawil, CH). Then, extracts were filtered to eliminate salts using reverse phase columns (Phenomenex, 500 mg 6 mL-1, Strata; Torrance, CA). Columns were activated adding 6 mL of methanol 5%. The non-polar fraction was collected as follows: 6 mL methanol 100% were added twice and a final rinsing step with 6 mL CH2CL2 100%, to render a final volume of 18 mL. Then, non-polar extracts were concentrated on a Speedvac (35 °C, 3 h). Dried extracts were weighted again, immediately frozen (-20 °C) and on the day after solubilized in DMSO to get a stock solution of 1 mg mL-1, kept at -80 °C until use.
4.3. Antiviral and Antibacterial Activity of the Extracts
The antiviral activity of the extracts against the spring viraemia of carp virus (SVCV) was assayed using the ZF4 cell line. The ZF4 cells (ATCC CRL-2050) were cultured at 28 ºC in DMEM/F-12, HEPES (Invitrogen, GIBCO) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS Invitrogen, GIBCO), penicillin (100 IU mL
-1) (Invitrogen, GIBCO), and streptomycin (100g mL
-1) (Invitrogen, GIBCO), and buffered with 7.5% sodium bicarbonate (Invitrogen, GIBCO). The SVCV isolate 56/70 was previously propagated on ZF4 cells and titrated in 96-well plates. The effect of the extracts on the viral replication was assayed by mixing the SVC virus with a non-toxic final concentration of 10 and 25 μg mL
-1 of each extract (1% and 2.5% final concentration of DMSO, respectively). The plates were incubated at 28 °C for 6 days and examined for cytopathic effects. The virus dilution that causes an infection of 50% of the cell line (TCID50) was determined using the Reed-Müench [
109] method. Each extract was titrated 4 times. The percentage of inhibition (PI) was calculated to present the antiviral activity of the extracts using the values of TCID50/mL, as follows: PI = [1 − (T/C)] × 100, with T being the viral titer of treated cells and C the viral titer of the positive control. The antiviral activity was scored as strong (PI>90%), moderate (PI between 50 and 90%) and weak (PI<50%) [
69].
The antibacterial activity of the different extracts was assayed against both Gram (-) and Gram (+) bacteria. Briefly, The Gram (-) Aeromonas hydrophyla AH-1 strain (Yu et al., 2004) and the Gram (+) Micrococcus luteus (aka lysodeikticus) were grown on Tryptic Soy Agar (TSA, Scharlab) plates at 25 °C. Two bacterial suspensions were prepared in Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB, Scharlab) (at a final concentration of 5x106 and 106 CFUs/mL for A. hydrophyla and M. luteus, respectively) and mixed with the different extracts at a final concentration of 10 μg mL-1 (1% final concentration of DMSO). The bacteria were also treated with 1% DMSO and used as growth control. The bacterial growth was analyzed in a 96 well plate by measuring the OD at 600 nm during 24h in the GloMax reader (Promega). The percentage of bacterial growth reduction was calculated by using the values obtained in the control wells as 100% of bacterial growth. The experiment was conducted 4 times.
For both assays, the normality of the data was evaluated by a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and a T-test was used to determinate significant differences at p>0.05 by using the GraphPad Prism V7 software.
4.4. Anti-Inflammatory Activity of the Extracts
The anti-inflammatory activity of the extracts was assayed in vivo using the transgenic zebrafish larvae Tg(
lyz:DsRed2) showing red fluorescent neutrophils [
110]. Eggs were obtained by natural spawning and reared at 28 °C. Transection of the caudal fin was performed in three days post-fertilization (3 dpf) larvae using a sapphire single edge lancet (WPI instrument) at the boundary of the notochord without injury the notochord and the vascular tissue. Animals were previously anesthetized by immersion in water containing 70 mg mL
-1 tricaine (ethyl 3-aminobenzoate, Sigma-Aldrich). Animals were distributed in a 96 well plate (one animal per well) and immersed in water containing the different extracts at a final concentration of 25 μg mL
-1. Control animals were treated with water containing the same concentration of DMSO (2.5%). Ten animals were used for each extract. Images of the injured animals were taken at 2h, 24h, and 48h using a fluorescent microscope DMi8 (LEICA). The sampling points were selected to analyze the initial cell migration and accumulation (2h), the resolution of the inflammatory process (24h) and the late rearrange of neutrophils (84h) according to the bibliography [
93,
94,
95].
The number of neutrophils in the tail was counted in a 100 μm section anterior to the injury. Multiple focal planes were manually acquired when several neutrophils were overlapped to obtain images at single cell resolution. The z-stacks ensure an accurate determination of the number of neutrophils in those thick areas of the tail. The percentage of neutrophils was calculated by considering the number of cells observed in the control animals at 2h post injury as the 100% of neutrophil migration. All results were expressed as the mean and SD. Significant differences between the data were determined by performing a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test with a Dunns post-test using the GraphPad Prism V7 software. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
4.5. Cytotoxic Activity of the Extracts in Cancer Cell Lines
The human colon carcinoma cell line HCT 116 was obtained from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, Missouri, USA). The human hepatocellular carcinoma and osteosarcoma cell lines, HepG2 and MG-63, respectively, were obtained from the American Culture Collection (ATCC) (Manassas, Virginia, EUA). The cell lines were maintained in an incubator with an atmosphere of 5% CO2 at 37 °C. HCT 116 was cultured in McCoy′s 5A medium (Sigma-Aldrich, Missouri, EUA), while HepG2 and MG-63 were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM) (Biowest SAS, Nuaillé, France). Both media were supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) (Biochrom, Berlin, Germany), 1% of penicillin/streptomycin (Biochrom, Berlin, Germany), and 0.1% of amphotericin (GE Healthcare, Little Chafont, Buckinghamshire, UK).
For the assays, the selected extracts were resuspended in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and the cell lines were seeded at 3.3x104 cells mL-1 in 96 wells plates and incubated for 24 h. After, the cells were exposed to 0.5% of DMSO as a solvent control (maximum solvent concentration used), 1 μM of staurosporine (positive control) and to the concentrations 5, 25 and 50 μg mL-1 of the extracts, for 48 h.
Cell viability was evaluated by a colorimetric assay with 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide (MTT reagent). MTT was added to each well, to a final concentration of 200 μg mL
-1, and incubated for 4 h. The formed formazan crystals were dissolved in 100 μL of DMSO and the absorbance was read in a multi-detection microplate reader (Synergy HT, Biotek, Bart Frederick Shahr, Germany) at 570 nm. Each cell line was used in three independent assays. For each assay, the values of each treatment were used to calculate the media and then normalized to the solvent control. Then the data was analyzed using the following calculus:
A T-test was used to determinate significant differences at p>0.05 by using the GraphPad Prism V7 software.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, J.H.U., A.R., A.F., B.N. and F.R.; methodology, J.H.U., F.R., A.R., P.C.; formal analysis, J.H.U., A.R.; writing—original draft preparation, J.H.U., A.R., F.R.; writing—review and editing, J.H.U., A.R., F.R., B.N., P.C.; funding acquisition, A.F., B.N., F.R., V.V. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.