Marine Pigments as Drugs, and Other Applications: Where Are We?

Abstract

The use of different marine resources, including various colouring agents, is rooted in human history. They have been used as nutrients and medicaments and in luxury products. Readily available marine biological pigments (MBPs) are considered inexpensive materials, since they can be used as colourants. MBPs form part of the ‘’blue technology’’ approach for industrial colouring applications, including staining, textile dyeing, and uses to give fashionable colours to luxury products. They serve as nutrient additives, cosmetic ingredients, and as parts of beauty products. Today, they still are broadly used in the context of diverse new applications. MBPs can be concentrated differently on the bodies of marine creatures, providing each pigment its unique colour and properties. MBPs like carotenoids can complement important cell activities, like photosynthesis. They can function independently or support other micro- and macromolecules. MBPs are essential for their host’s survival. Outside their primary hosts (in the context of uses on and in consumers’ corpora), they either stay unmodified or can be changed by association with specific micro- and macromolecules. A few types of MBPs have been extracted, purified, identified, and formulated as drugs or pure chemicals. MBPs share common properties, such as functioning as antioxidants, can protect against sunlight and UV waves, and can improve vision. They take part in health protection and disease treatment, including anticancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-neurodegeneration, anti-ageing, and anti-wrinkle functions, and can function as an antimicrobial. With many undiscovered properties, MBPs represent a source for de novo applications with innumerable chances that might offer mastery of the fields of colour-based applications. This review summaries the importance of MBPs and addresses important applicable properties that make them attractive for nutraceutical, medicinal, pharmaceutical, and cosmeceutical uses, in addition to various industrial applications, and discusses historical and contemporary facts that have attracted human attention, both in the past and today, along with setting out expectations for the future of MBPs.