Cytotoxic polyhydroxy sterols from the Egyptian Red Sea soft coral Sarcophyton acutum

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

“…These results are matched with the preliminary chemical screening reported for other Sarcophyton species [15] and with the chemical reviews of the genus Sarcophyton [5,16]. According to the results of the chemical screening and the reported cytotoxicity of steroidal compounds [13] and antileishmanial activity of diterpenes [17]; the cytotoxic and antileishmanial activity of the total desalted extract and its fractions were investigated.…”

“…The n-Hexane fraction was inactive against all tested cell lines under the maximum concentration used (100 µg/mL). the strong activity of the EtOAc fraction may be attributed to its expected high contents of polyhydroxylated sterols which are reported to have strong cytotoxic activity [13]. This is the first report on evaluation of the cytotoxic activity of S. spongiosum.…”

“…As a part of our continuous efforts to find new treatments for cutaneous leishmaniasis from marine organisms [13], the anti-L. major activity of S. spongiosum total methanolic extract, different fractions were examined. The results (Table 2) revealed that the DCM fraction showed noticeable antileishmanial activity (IC50 28.1 ± 1.2) while the EtOAc fraction and the total methanolic extract exhibited moderate activity (37.0 ± 1.4 and 42.2 ± 2.4 µg/mL, respectively) as compared with the standard antileishmanial miltefosine (IC50 8.1 ± 1.9 µg/mL).…”

“…Each experiment was carried out in triplicate. The following equation was used to calculate the cytotoxic activity: % inhibition = [1− (Atest − Ablank)/(Acontrol − Ablank)] × 100 where Acontrol is the absorbance of the control (DMSO) well, Atest the absorbance of the test wells, and Ablank the absorbance of the cell-free wells [11,13].…”

“…Also, the toxic side effects, high cost, lack of selectivity, and the potential emergence of parasitic resistance of currently available drugs (such as pentavalent antimonials, miltefosine, and amphotericin B) made the searching for new effective and safe therapeutic approaches urgently required [12]. Our previous attempt to discover a new source for anticancer and/or antileishmanial drugs from natural source revealed that the Sarcophyton acutum could be considered as a promising source for this purpose [13]. So, the activity of other Sarcophyton species is expected and deserve searching.…”