Isolation and Identification of Anti cancer Compounds from Algae

Abstract

Executing effective cancer therapy is one of the crucial factors for treating cancer worldwide. newlineNatural sources are the most sought-after resources for the discovery of novel therapeutic newlinemolecules. Algae being the dominant organisms with enormous structurally diverse newline newlinesecondary metabolites with wide range of therapeutic applications. Algae represent an under- newlineexploited resource of pharmacological compounds, especially anti-cancer. Hence, the current newline newlinestudy was mainly focused on to evaluate the anti-proliferative activities of marine macroalgae newlineagainst in- vitro cancer cell lines, the mechanisms of action and to identify the bioactive newlinecompound. Through the screening of several algae, two of the brown algae Chnoospora newlineminima, and Sargassum myriocystum demonstrated promising anti-proliferative effects newlinetowards MCF-7, HepG2 and HeLa cancer cell lines. The secondary metabolites of algae were newlineextracted using methanol, the extracts were purified by TLC. The bioactive fraction was newlineselected through bioassay guide fractionation. The fractions CF4 and SF6 from these algal newlineextracts showed significant cytotoxic activities when analysed through MTT and trypan blue newlineassays and caused apoptosis in the cancer cell, Apoptosis induction was confirmed through newlinein-vitro assays for caspase activity, DNA fragmentation, flow cytometry for cell cycle newlineanalysis, gene expression studies for tumor suppressor (P53) and pro-apoptotic genes (Bax). newlineThe fractions also exhibited non-cytotoxic to the human peripheral lymphocytes. The newline newlinecompounds from the algae C. minima, and S. myriocystum demonstrated significant anti- newlineangiogenesis potential in the chick embryo model. The compounds were purified newline newlinecharacterized by HPLC and GC-MS methods. Hexadecanoic acid presence was seen in C. newlineminima and dacarbazine (imidazole carboxamide) and ellagic acid (anti-cancer compounds) newlinewere found in S. myriocystum, indicating that these compounds (probably along with the newlinesynergistic effect of some other unknown compounds) might be responsible for the promising newlineanti-cancer activity of these marine algae. The results show the potential of these marine newlinemacro-algae towards future pre-clinical and clinical studies that might lead to drug newlinedevelopment. newline