Rapid Screening of Chemical Compositions of Gracilaria dura and Hypnea musciformis (Rhodophyta) From Corsican Lagoon Tao Xu 1,2 , Sylvain Sutour 1 , Hervé Casabianca 2 , Félix Tomi 1 , Mathieu Paoli 1 , Marie Garrido 3,4 , Vanina Pasqualini 3,4 , Antoine Aiello 3,4 , Vincent Castola 1 , Ange Bighelli 1 1 UMR 6134 CNRS, SPE, Equipe Chimie et Biomasse, Université de Corse, Ajaccio, France 2 UMR 5280 CNRS, Institut des Sciences Analytiques, Villeurbanne, France 3 UMR 6134 CNRS, SPE, Université de Corse, Corte, France 4 UMS 3514 CNRS, Stella Mare, Université de Corse, Biguglia, France Introduction Algae has been one of the richest and most promising sources of bioactive primary and secondary metabolites 1-3 and their discoveries have significantly expanded in the past three decades. 4,5 According to Capo et al, 6 the genus Gracilaria was the most attractive candidate because of its ability to achieve high yields while producing commer- cially valuable extracts. Numerous bioactive primary and secondary metabolites identified within the genus Graci- laria and Hypnea have been reported in literature. 7-9 In the light of these results and of worldwide great interest in marine biomass as a source of bioactive compounds (for the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry), the aim of this work was to screen rapidly the chemical compositions of two of the most abundant algae growing in Corsican lagoons (Its’ ecosystem was formerly studied by Pasqualini et al 10 ) and to take into account the algae biomass as a potential multi product source for the cos- metic industry. Materials and Methods Biomass Collection and Preparation Fresh algae was collected from the surface to the depth (maximum depth 3 m) in Urbinu lagoon, located on the eastern coast of Corsica, France (Mediterranean Sea; Figure 1) on March 2013.The samples were afterwards carefully washed with artificial sea and tap water; cleaned algae was next dried by a lyophilizer. Five hundred grams of each dried and grounded alga was soaked in 500 mL methanol (MeOH) at room temperature for 3 × 72 hours then filtered. The extracts were concentrated in vacuum at 35°C, suspended in ultra pure water (250 mL) and further partitioned between n-pentane (3×250 mL), ethyl acetate (EtOAc) (3×250 mL) and n-BuOH (3×250 mL). For algae G. dura: 1000.2 mg n-pentane extract, 502.7 mg EtOAc ex- tract and 1544.6 mg n-BuOH extract were obtained. For algae H. musciformis, 313.0 mg n-pentane extract, 97.1 mg EtOAc extract and 1000.0 mg n-BuOH extract were obtained. All organic phases were concentrated to dryness Abstract Marine macroalgae are important ecological and commercial biomass resources to many regions of the world. They are valuable food resources and are most promising sources of bioactive compounds for the cosmetic industries. Phytochemical off-line investigation by the separation and identification of secondary metabolites are time, material and human resource consuming. Thus, in our studies, a rapid gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) on-line analysis with pretreatment (chemical derivatisations) was adapted for chemical profiling of two wild growing algae: Gracilaria dura and Hypnea musciformis from Corsica (France). Two GC-MS derivatisation methods were used: transmethylation for the fatty acids (FAs), and trimethylsilylation for compounds which bear -OH/-NH function. The application of the method on Gracilaria dura, and Hypnea musciformis leads to an identification of FAs, phytosterols, esters, simple phenolic compounds, and sugars from n-pentane, ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and n-butanol (n-BuOH) extracts. This method is quick and low-cost for chemical profiling of marine biomass. It could be applied not only by the fundamental but also cosmetic industrial research. In addition, this study showed that all algae extracts had modest DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) scavenging activities and the n-BuOH extract of Hypnea musciformis had a high total phenol content. Keywords: GC-MS, Chemical derivatisations, Chemical profiling, Corsican, Red algae Correspondence to Tao Xu Email: xu@univ-corse.fr Received 2 June 2015 Accepted 29 July 2015 ePublished 6 August 2015 International Journal of Phytocosmetics and Natural Ingredients 2015;2:8 Original Article doi 10.15171/ijpni.2015.08 Please cite this paper as: Xu T, Sutour S, Casabianca H, et al. Rapid screening of chemical compositions of Gracilaria dura and Hypnea musciformis (Rhodophyta) from Corsican lagoon. International Journal of Phytocosmetics and Natural Ingredients. 2015;2:8. doi:10.15171/ijpni.2015.08.