Pharmacological evaluation of the anti-inflammatory and cytotoxic activities of crude extracts from the Mediterranean marine algae and sponge

Abderrahman Bouraoui1, Wafa Chaouch1, Ainura Chadoeva2, Afef Dellai1, Mehdi Dridi1, Jacques Robert2
1Unité URSAM, Lab. de Pharmacologie, Faculté de Pharmacie, Monastir, Tunisia, 2Lab. de cancérologie biologique, Institut Bergonié, Bordeaux, France

As part of our search for new anti-inflammatory or anticancer potential drugs, aqueous extracts of macro-algae and invertebrates collected from Mediterranean Tunisia coasts were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory and cytotoxic activities. The present study has established that the aqueous extract from the brown algae of the genus Zonaria tested at different doses ( 50, 100, 200 mg/ kg ) for their anti-inflammatory activity, using the carrageenan paw oedema test (Winter et al, 1962) in male albinos Wistar rats (150-170 g) and in comparison to reference drugs: Dexamethasone (1 mg/kg) and aspirin (300 mg/kg), exhibited, in a dose dependent manner, a significant inhibitory effect on rat paw oedema; the % inhibition of oedema, 3h after carrageenan injection ranged from 66% to 86%. We also established that the aqueous extract of the marine sponge of the genus Spongia, showed a strong cytotoxic activity against three human tumour cell lines (A-549, MCF-7, HCT-15), using a MTT cytotoxicity assay (Bissery et al, 1991). At concentration of 0.50 to 1.25 mg/ml, this extract suppressed, dose dependently, the proliferation of the three cell lines by more than 75%. The IC50 values ranged from 0.80 to 0.90 mg/ml. The pharmacological activities of these active extracts are discussed in accordance with the secondary metabolites present in the brown algae, Zonaria (Puntip et al, 2003) and Spongia (Grassia, et al, 1994). Purification these extracts are under investigation.

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