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Funding: This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), through the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2020, attributed to MARE—Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Polytechnic of Leiria. This work was also partially funded by the Integrated Programme of SR&TD SmartBioR (Centro-01-0145-FEDER-000018) co-funded by the Centro 2020 program, Portugal2020, European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund; by project ValorMar (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-24517), European Regional Development Fund, COMPETE2020, Portugal2020; and by project “ProValgas@Oeste—Promoção e valorização das algas para uma alimentação saudável”—Operational Programme Mar 2020/Nacional, MAR-04.03.01-FEAMP-0177. A.H. thanks FCT for Ph.D. grant SFRH/BD/120250/2016. Due to the high consumption of fat-rich processed foods, efforts are being done to reduce their saturated fat (SFA) contents and replace it with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), creating a necessity to find alternative PUFA sources. Macroalgae, being a promising natural source of healthy food, may be such an alternative. The fatty acid (FA) profile of Fucus spiralis, Bifurcaria bifurcata, Ulva lactuca, and Saccorhiza polyschides were determined through direct transesterification and their seasonal variation was studied. F. spiralis showed the highest FA content overall, B. bifurcata presented the higher PUFA amounts, and U. lactuca and S. polyschides the higher SFA. The production of FA was shown to be influenced by the seasons. Spring and summer seemed to induce the FA production in F. spiralis and B. bifurcata while in U. lactuca the same was verified in winter. U. lactuca presented a !6/!3 ratio between 0.59 and 1.38 while B. bifurcata presented a ratio around 1.31. The study on the seasonal variations of the macroalgal FA profile can be helpful to understand the best season to yield FA of interest, such as ALA, EPA, and DHA. It may also provide valuable information on the best culturing conditions for the production of desired FAs. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Acknowledgments : This work was supported through funding provided by the European Commission Collaborative Project FP7 number 265896-www.bammbo.eu). One of the authors (G.C.) was partially supported by CNRS (Côte d’Azur delegation-DR 20). J.-M. Guigonis from the Plate-Forme Bernard Rossi of Nice is acknowledged for recording HRMS spectra. Cancer and infectious diseases continue to be a major public health problem, and new drugs are necessary. As marine organisms are well known to provide a wide range of original compounds, the aim of this study was to investigate the bioactivity of the main constituents of the cosmopolitan red alga, Sphaerococcus coronopifolius. The structure of several bromoditerpenes was determined by extensive spectroscopic analysis and comparison with literature data. Five molecules were isolated and characterized which include a new brominated diterpene belonging to the rare dactylomelane family and named sphaerodactylomelol (1), along with four already known sphaerane bromoditerpenes (2–5). Antitumor activity was assessed by cytotoxicity and anti-proliferative assays on an in vitro model of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG-2 cells). Antimicrobial activity was evaluated against four pathogenic microorganisms: Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. Compound 4 exhibited the highest antimicrobial activity against S. aureus (IC50 6.35 μM) and compound 5 the highest anti-proliferative activity on HepG-2 cells (IC50 42.9 μM). The new diterpene, sphaerodactylomelol (1), induced inhibition of cell proliferation (IC50 280 μM) and cytotoxicity (IC50 720 μM) on HepG-2 cells and showed antimicrobial activity against S. aureus (IC50 96.3 μM). info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion