Figure 1.

Antithrombotic agents used in clinics. Some studies described marine products from seaweeds as feasible anticoagulants to be explored such as those isolated from the brown alga, Canistrocarpus cervicornis (e.g., heterofucans) [9] and fruits of Ilex paraguariensis [10]. Diterpenes also represent a class of secondary metabolites with high biotechnological potential [11]. Recently, De Andrade Moura and coworkers reported the inhibitory effects against human platelet aggregation and blood coagulation of dichotomanol, a rare exclusively marine diterpene with two aldehyde groups and pachydictyol A and isopachydictyol A which are mainly prenylated derivatives of known guaiane sesquiterpenes, all isolated from the Brazilian marine brown alga Dictyota menstrualis [2] (Figure 2). As detected by in vitro enzymatic assays, these diterpenes act as anticoagulants and antiplatelets through interaction with Thrombin, a key enzyme of the coagulation cascade, a platelet aggregation agonist and an important target for thrombotic diseases treatment [2,12,13].