the polysaccharides of acanthophora spicifera and cystoseira trinode were isolated and theircomponents identified using different chemical and spectral techniques. their effects were evaluated for thefirst time on hyperlipidemic rats. atorvastatin ca (lipitor®) was used as a reference drug. results revealedthat the polysaccharides isolated were of sulfate type. acanthophora spicifera lowered th...

Three types of sea alga distributed along the Syrian coast have been collected and analyzed for radioactivity and trace elements. Results have shown that (137)Cs concentrations in all the analyzed sample were relatively low (less than 1.2 Bq kg(-1) dry weight) while the levels of naturally occurring radionuclides, such as (210)Po and (210)Pb, were found to be high in most samples; the highest o...

An extremely rare alga, Aegagropila linnaei, is known for its beautiful spherical filamentous aggregations called Lake Ball (Marimo). It has long been a mystery in biology as to why this species forms 3D ball-like aggregations. This alga also forms two-dimensional mat-like aggregations. Here we show that forming ball-like aggregations is an adaptive strategy to increase biomass in the extremely...

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is both an invaluable model organism for plant biology and an attractive biotechnological production system. Despite the availability of efficient methods for introduction of foreign genes into the nuclear genome of the alga, transgene expression levels are usually very poor. This is a serious limitation that has severely hampered both post-g...

We report the first Japanese case of primary septicemia with Shewanella alga and also describe the bacteriological characteristics of and results of antibiotic susceptibility tests of the isolate. S. alga was repeatedly isolated, at times simultaneously with Escherichia coli, from the blood of a 64-year-old female undergoing hemodialysis. The isolated organism was determined to be S. alga based...

Caulerpa racemosa is a tropical green alga introduced into the Mediterranean as an immigrant from the Red Sea which has successfully fast-spread in the south-eastern and in the north-western part of the basin. C. racemosa occurs mostly in shallow but also in deep subtidal habitats colonising hard and soft substrata where turfs, erect algae and even seagrasses are present with the potential to p...

Zero valent iron (ZVI), the primary reactive material in several permeable reactive barriers, is often oxidized to ferrous or ferric iron, resulting in decreased reactivity with time. Iron reducing bacteria can reconvert the ferric iron to its ferrous form, prolonging the reduction of chlorinated organic contaminants. In this study, the reduction of Fe(II,III) oxide and Fe(III) oxide by a strai...

Oct-1-en-3-ol has been studied among oxylipins as a global metabolome that induce the defense of marine algae. The present short review summarized research oct-1-en-3-ol stress response molecule in algae including different aspects: (i) its biosynthesis from fatty acids; (ii) distribution algae; (iii) direct effect on microorganisms infecting thalli; (iv) an indirect communication for alga-alga...