Background: Sponges are champion of bioactive producers because of the variety of products that have been found from them. Most bioactive compounds extracted from sponges were classified into antibiotic, antiviral, antitumor, and anti-inflammatory. Tow marine sponge species were collected during winter 2016 from Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea, Egypt viz., Callyspongia crassa and Callyspongia siphonella. The collected sponge species belong to family Callyspongiidae. The sponge samples were extracted by ethanol and investigated as a promising source of natural products which can be used as antitumor, antiviral, and antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory agents. Results: Results revealed that the crude extract of C. siphonella showed high antitumor activity with value of 5.57 and 1.39 μg/ml as IC50 against colon cancer (caco-2) and breast cancer (Mcf-7) on cell line, respectively. Also the C. crassa extract showed high cytotoxic effect to Vero cell with HAV (hepatitis A virus), which exhibits that MIC was 9.765 μg/ml, the most effective extract was of C. crassa against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans. Also, ethanolic crude of C. siphonella showed positive antibacterial activity against P. aueroginosa. Indeed, there much other extracts exhibited no antibacterial activities, especially all extracts against Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio damsela. The C. crassa extract conducted an antioxidant activity in corresponding to ascorbic acid standard with value of 671 μg/ml as IC50. There was only one crude extract that had anti-inflammatory activity; it was of C. crassa (61.47%). Conclusions: The present investigation confirmed that the crude extract of C. siphonella conducted to promising antitumor agent against colon and breast cancer, while the crude extract of C. crassa conducted to promising anti-inflammatory and antiviral agents. In summary, the marine sponges are an indispensable, chemodiverse, biodiverse, and rich source of natural products and secondary metabolites with potent pharmacological effects. The studies should be interested with spongederived bioactive compounds as a promising strategy that deserves further attention in future investigations in order to address the limitations regarding sustainable supply of marine drugs.

Many marine organisms have been used as sources of medicines and primary products (Hasaballah and El-Naggar 2017). The Red Sea and its two gulfs (Aqaba and Suez) is one of the most important storehouses of global marine biodiversity (El-Naggar et al., 2017 and Mona et al., 2019).Aquatic organisms are considered as a source for huge numbers of bioactive compounds and secondary metabolites that attract the attentions of biologists, pharmacist and chemists as a result of their potential activities as anticancer, antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-fungal and so on (El-Naggar and Hasaballah, 2018; Elnagar et al., 2018). They are facing many of environmental challenges such as competition on space and nutrition, predation and self-defense etc., all these challenges stimulate aquatic organisms to produce secondary metabolites to cope it (El-Damhougy et al., 2017a; Ibrahim et al.,

To shed some light on distribution, abundance and diversity of zooplankton groups in Lake Timsah, four cruises (spring 2015, summer 2015, autumn 2015, and winter 2016) were carried out. In the present result, Lake Timsah zooplankton were comprised 13 groups of the animal kingdom include, Copepoda (with relative abundance of 39.44%); Rotifera (32.72%); Mollusca (15.15%); Tintinnida (4.55%); Polychaeta (3.43%); Cirripedia (1.62%); Decapoda (1.24%); Cladocera (0.94%); Ostracoda (0.57%); Appendicularia (0.19%); Fish egg (0.06%); Foramenifera (0.04%) and Cnidaria (0.04%). Copepoda was found to be the most diversified group during the study period, it represented by 62 species comprised 44.93% of the total recorded species, followed by Rotifera (33 species, 23.91%), Tintinnida (18 species, 13.04%), Cladocera (10 species, 7.25%), Ostracoda (5 species, 3.62%), Mollusca (4 species, 2.90%), Appendicularia (3 species, 2.17%), Cnidaria (2 species, 1.45%) and only one species of Foramenifera represented 0.72% of the total recorded zooplankton species. Seasonally, zooplankton was flourished in summer, while winter is the lowest abundant season. Spatially, because of the difference of water masses entering the lake, each group is dominant in a certain region. Copepods are common in sites that near of Suez Canal due to the presence of saline water masses. While, rotifers and other freshwater zooplanktons are dominant in sites that near freshwater masses, such as western lagoon.

Background: Sponges are champion of bioactive producers because of the variety of products that have been found from them. Most bioactive compounds extracted from sponges were classified into antibiotic, antiviral, antitumor, and anti-inflammatory. Tow marine sponge species were collected during winter 2016 from Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea, Egypt viz., Callyspongia crassa and Callyspongia siphonella. The collected sponge species belong to family Callyspongiidae. The sponge samples were extracted by ethanol and investigated as a promising source of natural products which can be used as antitumor, antiviral, and antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory agents. Results: Results revealed that the crude extract of C. siphonella showed high antitumor activity with value of 5.57 and 1.39 μg/ml as IC50 against colon cancer (caco-2) and breast cancer (Mcf-7) on cell line, respectively. Also the C. crassa extract showed high cytotoxic effect to Vero cell with HAV (hepatitis A virus), which exhibits that MIC was 9.765 μg/ml, the most effective extract was of C. crassa against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans. Also, ethanolic crude of C. siphonella showed positive antibacterial activity against P. aueroginosa. Indeed, there much other extracts exhibited no antibacterial activities, especially all extracts against Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio damsela. The C. crassa extract conducted an antioxidant activity in corresponding to ascorbic acid standard with value of 671 μg/ml as IC50. There was only one crude extract that had anti-inflammatory activity; it was of C. crassa (61.47%). Conclusions: The present investigation confirmed that the crude extract of C. siphonella conducted to promising antitumor agent against colon and breast cancer, while the crude extract of C. crassa conducted to promising anti-inflammatory and antiviral agents. In summary, the marine sponges are an indispensable, chemodiverse, biodiverse, and rich source of natural products and secondary metabolites with potent pharmacological effects. The studies should be interested with spongederived bioactive compounds as a promising strategy that deserves further attention in future investigations in order to address the limitations regarding sustainable supply of marine drugs.