Antitumor and antifungal activities of organic extracts of seacucumber Holothuria atra from the southeast coast of India

Abstract

In phylum Echinodermata, the family Holothuridae is distinguished by its capacity of bioactive compounds. Sea cucumber Holothuria atra is commonly known as the lollyfish. The antifungal activity was detected using agar well diffusion method against the various fungal strains such as Trichoderma viride, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavis, Candida albicans and Penicillium chrysogenum. Relatively high antifungal activity was seen against Candida albicans at 100 µL −1 concentration of extracts. Zone of inhibition was measured at 18 mm of diameter. The anti-tumor activities were detected against the Vero and Hep2 cell lines using MTT assay. The cells were treated with H. atra extract at concentrations 0.07810mg mL −1 . The extract showed high proliferative activity against the Hep2 cells. The body wall extracts of sea cucumber (H. atra) showed effective antifungal and antitumor activities. All these findings suggest that the extracts could be used for the development of drugs.

Medicinal and health benefit effects of functional sea cucumbers

“…32 More recently, antifungal activity of H. atra extracts against various fungal strains such as Trichoderma viride, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavis, C. albicans and Penicillium chrysogenum has also been reported. 33 Antifungal activity of H. atra has opened the potency of sea cucumber as antifungal agent and could become the novel alternative solution as oral therapy of candidiasis and others.

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Black sea cucumber (Holothuria atraJaeger, 1833) rescuesPseudomonas aeruginosa-infectedCaenorhabditis elegans viareduction of pathogen virulence factors and enhancement of host immunity

“…This includes antibacterial, antifungal, anti-proliferative, anti-apoptotic and antioxidant properties. 6,[38][39][40][41][42][43] We report here for the first time the anti-infective capacity of H. atra extract through an in vivo Our results showed that the H. atra methanol extract conferred survival to P. aeruginosa PA14-infected C. elegans without possessing direct bactericidal activity towards P. aeruginosa PA14, ruling out bacteria mortality as reason for improved worm survival.…”

Black sea cucumber (Holothuria atra Jaeger, 1833) rescues Pseudomonas aeruginosa-infected Caenorhabditis elegans via reduction of pathogen virulence factors and enhancement of host immunity

“…There is an increasing reports of bioactivities from H. atra , a widely distributed tropical sea cucumber species. This includes antibacterial, antifungal, anti-proliferative, anti-apoptotic and antioxidant properties (Dakrory et al, 2015; Dhinakaran and Lipton, 2014; Dhinakaran and Lipton, 2015; Esmat et al, 2013; Nishikawa et al, 2015; Ridzwan et al, 1995; Saad et al, 2016).…”