According to a study, a chemical isolated from edible marine algae may aid in the prevention of coronavirus transmission.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers believe ulvan, a large water-soluble polysaccharide derived from the cell wall of green seaweed, might help prevent coronavirus from infecting human cells.
“The lack of access to vaccinations kills many people and even promotes the development of new variations,” stated TAU’s Prof. Alexander Golberg.
“The research is still in its early phases, but we hope that the discovery will be exploited to build a medicine that is both accessible and effective in avoiding coronavirus infection in the future. At this point, our findings inspire cautious hope “He added this in the research, which was published in PeerJ, a peer-reviewed science publication.
Because other research showed that certain seaweed compounds had antiviral properties, the team decided they wanted to evaluate them against Covid.
They then decided to test ulvan because it could be extracted from common seaweed.
“Ulvan is extracted from marine algae called Ulva, which is also called ‘sea lettuce’, and is food in places like Japan, New Zealand and Hawaii,” Golberg said. “It has previously been reported that ulvan is effective against viruses in agriculture and also against some of the human viruses – and when coronavirus arrived, we asked to test its activity.”
They grew Ulva algae, extracted the ulvan from it and sent it to the Southern Research Institute in Alabama. There, the US team built a cellular model to assess the activity of the substance produced in Golberg’s laboratory.
The cells were exposed to both the coronavirus and to ulvan. It was found that, in the presence of ulvan, the coronavirus did not infect cells. “In other words,” he said, “ulvan prevents the cells from being infected with coronavirus.”
He stressed that the best thing would be to vaccinate the world. However, it has become clear that this is unlikely to happen — at least quickly.
“As long as billions in the low-income world do not have access to the vaccinea the virus is expected to develop more and more variants, which may be resistant to vaccines – and the war against the coronavirus will continue,” Golberg said. “For this reason, it is very important, for the sake of all mankind, to find a cheap and accessible solution that will suit even economically weak populations in developing countries.”
