In-depth metabolic profiling of marine macroalgae confirms strong biochemical differences between brown, red and green algae

In-depth metabolic profiling, also termed metabolomics, provides detailed information about the biochemical phenotype of an organism. Besides improving our understanding of biochemical processes, metabolomics is used for environmental monitoring, natural product discovery, or even chemotaxonomy, among others. However, for marine macroalgae, comparative large-scale metabolomics studies are lacking, even though seaweeds belong to the most important aquatic primary producers. In this study, we present via a broad scale systematic metabolomics survey 391 metabolites from 21 seaweeds species, representing brown, red and green algae. We demonstrate clear differences in metabolite composition of these seaweeds, reflecting their taxonomic classification. We highlight these differences for amino acid, amino acid derivative and peptide metabolites, energy and carbohydrate metabolites, for lipid, fatty acid and sterol metabolites and for secondary metabolites, including selected metabolic pathways such as the urea cycle, the citrate cycle and the glyconeogenesis/glycolysis, besides others. Additionally, we link selected seaweed biochemical properties to potential pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications. •Comparative metabolic profiling between 21 different seaweed species•391 Metabolites detected via liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry•Remarkable metabolic variation between brown, red and green algae•Useful methodology to gain first insights into metabolic pathways of seaweeds•Variance in metabolite, a useful tool to select species containing target substances