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Fucoidan is a polysaccharide largely made up of l-fucose and sulfate groups. Fucoidan is favorable worldwide, especially amongst the food and pharmaceutical industry as a consequence of its promising therapeutic effects. Its applaudable biological functions are ascribed to its unique biological structure. Classical bioactivities associated with fucoidan include anti-oxidant, anti-tumor, anti-coagulant, anti-thrombotic, immunoregulatory, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory effects. 

This fucoidan is a fucan sulphate occurring in brown marine algae (Phaeophyta), typically Laminaria japonica, and has been shown to have anti-coagulant activity.  The fucose content of this fucan is approx. 34.1% and it also contains galactose (approx. 4.0%), uronic acid (approx. 14.5%) and sulphate (approx. 31.7%).

Fucoidan is a water-soluble polysaccharide; it gives highly viscous solutions. The most important application of fucoidan is in food – fucoidan containing food and supplements are very popular on the Japanese market. Raw fucoidan materials are also used for cosmetics because the product is directly adsorbed by the human skin with the following effects: whitening, preserving moisture, removing freckles.Fucoidan has also important medical applications. The higher the sulfation, the higher its therapeutic potential. The role of fucoidan is as modulator of coagulation, as an alternative to the anticoagulant heparin, and many other biological activities such as anti-inflammation, anticell proliferation, and antiadhesion and antiviral infection, as fertilizer, anticoagulant, antitumor, antiviral agents. In addition, they act as ligands for selectins, protect gastric mucosa against proteolytic activity of gastric juice, block mammalian fertilization, etc.

Fucoidan from Fucus vesiculosus is a polysaccharide composed predominantly of sulfated fucose. It has been proposed to have antitumor and antiangogenic activities in vitro. This compound it is commonly found in many of the brown Heterokontophyta algae species. It is found in the edible seaweed Undaria Pinnatifida and also found in most Fucus species.

Studies of fucoidan have found it to have a broad variety of biological activities including antitumor and antiangogenic activities, immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant, antithrombotic, and antioxidant activities. Fucoidan induces macrophage activation which subsequently activates mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and results in natural killer cell proliferation. Fucoidan acts as a nonselective selectin blocker and has been shown to induce apoptosis and suppress angiogenesis.

fucoidan triggered apoptosis of pc-3 cells, human prostate cancer cells, via evoking intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways in a dose-dependent fashion, which indicated that fucoidan could dose-dependently block the growth of pc-3 cells. the activation of apoptosis induced by fucoidan was involved in the inactivation of p38 mapk and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (pi3k) /akt, and the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase mitogen-activated protein kinase (erk1/2 mapk) [1].

female balb/c mice bearing breast cancer were intraperitoneally injected with fucoidan at 10 mg/kg body weight every two days for 20 days. fucoidan decreased the tumor volume and the tumor weight in balb/c mice. additionally, fucoidan triggered apoptosis, which indicated that fucoidan could exert a strong antitumor effect on breast cancer model. compared with control group, fucoidan dampened angiogenesis in tumor tissue via inducing a remarkable decrease in intratumoral vascular endothelial growth factor expression and inhibited lung metastasis of breast cancer [2].

[1]. boo, h., hong, j., kim, s., kang, j., kim, m., & kim, e. et al. the anticancer effect of fucoidan in pc-3 prostate cancer cells. marine drugs. 2013; 11(8): 2982-2999.
[2]. xue, m., ge, y., zhang, j., wang, q., hou, l., & liu, y. et al. anticancer properties and mechanisms of fucoidan on mouse breast cancer in vitro and in vivo. plos one. 2012; 7(8). e43483.