## 4 Discussion
Thus, compounds able to enhance the inhibition of collagenase, elastase and hyaluronidase, among others, may be potential targets to use as bioactive ingredients in products with anti-aging properties [29]. In this context, the inhibition of elastase (Figure 1A) and hyaluronidase (Figure 1B) activities was analyzed using the six seaweed extracts at 2 mg\(\cdot\)mL\({}^{-1}\). For elastase, all the extracts were able to inhibit near to 100% of enzymatic activity when compared with the control (Figure 1A), and for hyaluronidase, the inhibition percentages were also above 77% for all extracts (with the exception of E1), showing a great potential as active ingredients for anti-wrinkle formulations. The high percentages of inhibition for all extracts suggest that more than one type of compound is responsible for these bioactivities, since the presence of different concentrations of ethanol during the extraction, or even the absence, would result in the extraction of different classes of compounds. While sulfated polysaccharides and proteins are almost exclusively soluble in water, compounds such as carotenoids, sterols and fatty acids, among others, are preferentially extracted using a compromise between ethanol and water due to their medium polarity. For MAAs, it is expected that from water to higher percentages of ethanol, the extraction of these compounds would occur, possibly presenting different relative contents for each extraction condition [9]. Peptides from seaweed, such as signal peptides, were described to stimulate the extracellular matrix, increasing neoclagenesis and elastin synthesis, resulting in wrinkle reduction and skin firming [2; 30]. Moreover, secondary metabolites, such as MAAs, have been described by their anti-wrinkle ability [29], mostly by their ability to inhibit the collagenase and elastase activities and to stimulate the secretion of hyaluronic acid by human fibroblasts [31; 32; 33]. Another group of secondary metabolites produced by red macroalgae, known for their capacity to maintain the extracellular matrix as healthier, are phenolic compounds [10]. In fact, a study conducted using a red macroalgae resulted in a methanolic extract rich in phenolic compounds, which was able to inhibit the overexpression of metalloproteinases, preventing the formation of wrinkles [31]. The antimicrobial properties of seaweed are also well established for a wide range of macroalgae [34; 35]. They are known to produce bioactive compounds to inhibit/reduce the growth of other competitive microorganisms [34]. For the six hydroethanolic extracts, three microorganisms were selected to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of _G.turturu_: a Gram-negative and a Gram-positive bacterium, _E. coli_ and _S. aureus_, respectively, and a fungal strain of _C. albicans_ (Table 3). Results show that for _E. coli_, extracts with higher percentages of ethanol were responsible for higher percentages of growth inhibition (E1 and E2, reaching near to 40% of inhibition). In the case of the Gram-positive _S. aureus_,E3 was the most promising extract with almost 60% of growth inhibition for three of the four concentrations tested, while for _C. albicans_, the antimicrobial profile obtained was not so clear, with some concentrations of the extracts E3-E6 being among the most effective against this species. The recent study of [PERSON] and co-workers [7] showed that ethanolic and polysaccharide extracts of _G. turuturu_ presented antibacterial activity against _E. coli_ and _S. aureus_, corroborating the results obtained and showing that the polysaccharides, such as carrageenan, present in this species, have antimicrobial activity. Further, the antifungal activity of this species was already confirmed for several species, as stated by [PERSON] and co-workers, who found extracts of _G. turuturu_ highly active against five fungi species [36]. Regarding the hydroethanolic extracts of _G.