Cytotoxicity and anti-leishmanial activity of the Red Sea soft coral Sarcophyton spongiosum

Fouad, Mostafa A.; Zidan, Sabry; Orabi, Mohamed A. A.; Abdelhamid, Reda A.; Allian, Abdallah; Matsunmai, Katsuyoshi

doi:10.21608/jabps.2021.62964.1120

Cytotoxicity and anti-leishmanial activity of the Red Sea soft coral Sarcophyton spongiosum

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Pharmacognosy Department, faculty of Pharmacy, Minia University, Minia 61519, Egypt

² Departement of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Al-Azhar University, Assiut Branch, Assiut, Egypt

³ Departement of Zoolgy, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut Branch, Assiut, Egypt

⁴ Departement of Pharmacognosy, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-2-3 Kasumi, Minami-Ku, Hiroshima 734-8553, Japan

10.21608/jabps.2021.62964.1120

Abstract

The aim of the present study is the evaluation of the in-vitro cytotoxicity and antileishmanial activities of a methanolic extract and its different fractions of the soft coral Sarcophyton spongiosum collected from the Egyptian Red Sea against three cancer cell lines, A549, HepG2, and MCF-7, and a protozoan, Leishmania Major, by the MTT assay protocol. The dichloromethane fraction exhibited significant anti-Leishmania major (IC50 28.1 ± 1.2 µg/mL) and cytotoxic activities against MCF-7 cell line IC50 (31.5 ± 1.1 µg/mL). The ethyl acetate fraction showed promising cytotoxicity against A549 and HepG2 cell lines (IC50 13.4 ± 1.2 and 11.6 ± 1.9 µg/mL, respectively). A preliminary chemical screening of the total methanolic extract indicated of the presence of sterols and diterpenes.

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