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Review
. 2020 Jan 7;18(1):43.
doi: 10.3390/md18010043.

Distribution, Contents, and Types of Mycosporine-Like Amino Acids (MAAs) in Marine Macroalgae and a Database for MAAs Based on These Characteristics

Yingying Sun  1   2   3 , Naisheng Zhang  1 , Jing Zhou  4 , Shasha Dong  1 , Xin Zhang  1 , Lei Guo  1   2 , Ganlin Guo  2
Affiliations
Review

Distribution, Contents, and Types of Mycosporine-Like Amino Acids (MAAs) in Marine Macroalgae and a Database for MAAs Based on These Characteristics

Yingying Sun et al. Mar Drugs. .

Abstract

Mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs), maximally absorbed in the wavelength region of 310-360 nm, are widely distributed in algae, phytoplankton and microorganisms, as a class of possible multi-functional compounds. In this work, based on the Web of Science, Springer, Google Scholar, and China national knowledge infrastructure (CNKI), we have summarized and analyzed the studies related to MAAs in marine macroalgae over the past 30 years (1990-2019), mainly focused on MAAs distribution, contents, and types. It was confirmed that 572 species marine macroalgae contained MAAs, namely in 45 species of Chlorophytes, 41 species of Phaeophytes, and 486 species of Rhodophytes, and they respectively belonged to 28 orders. On this basis, we established an open online database to quickly retrieve MAAs in 501 species of marine macroalgae. Furthermore, research concerning MAAs in marine macroalgae were analyzed using CiteSpace. It could easily be seen that the preparation and purification of MAAs in marine macroalgae have not been intensively studied during the past 10 years, and therefore it is necessary to strengthen the research in the preparation and purification of MAA purified standards from marine macroalgae in the future. We agreed that this process is not only interesting, but important due to the potential use of MAAs as food and cosmetics, as well as within the medicine industry.

Keywords: CiteSpace analysis; marine macroalgae; mycosporine-like amino acids; online database for MAAs; photoproduction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of MAAs in different phylums of marine macroalgae. Data extracted from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the total number of marine macroalgae species belong to this phylum.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of MAAs in different orders of marine macroalgae. Data extracted from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the total number of marine macroalgae species belong to this order. The several highlights parts in the pie chart are just for clarity.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The contents of total MAAs in different orders of marine macroalgae. Data extracted from related studies since 1990. The number in bracket represents the number of species included in orders, bar represents a marine macroalgae with corresponding MAAs in (a–d), and the bars with different widths represent the numbers of some marine macroalgae with corresponding MAAs in (c,d).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The contents of total MAAs in different orders of marine macroalgae. Data extracted from related studies since 1990. The number in bracket represents the number of species included in orders, bar represents a marine macroalgae with corresponding MAAs in (a–d), and the bars with different widths represent the numbers of some marine macroalgae with corresponding MAAs in (c,d).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Types of MAAs in macroalgal Rhodophytes. Data extracted from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the total number of macroalgal Rhodophyta contained identical MAA. The several highlights parts in the pie chart are just for clarity.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Distribution of specific MAA in different orders of macroalgal Rhodophytaes. Data extracted from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the total number of red macroalgae that contained specific MAA belong to this order. (a–h) represent specific MAA Asterina-330, Mycosporine-glycine, Palythene, Palythine, Palythinol, Porphyra-334, Usujirene and Shinorine, respectively.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Distribution of specific MAA in different orders of macroalgal Rhodophytaes. Data extracted from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the total number of red macroalgae that contained specific MAA belong to this order. (a–h) represent specific MAA Asterina-330, Mycosporine-glycine, Palythene, Palythine, Palythinol, Porphyra-334, Usujirene and Shinorine, respectively.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Distribution of marine macroalgae with no detectable MAAs concentrations. Data collected from related studies since 1990, and the number in a pie chart represents the number of marine macroalgae belonging to these orders.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Cluster view of MAAs studies in marine algae between 2009 and 2019. Data extracted from related studies collected in Web of Science.
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