In vitro studies of anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities of organic solvent extracts from cultured marine microalgae

doi:2013.28.1.111

Algae > Volume 28(1); 2013 > Article

Algae 2013;28(1): 111-119. doi: https://doi.org/10.4490/algae.2013.28.1.111

Kalpa W. Samarakoon¹, Ju-Young Ko¹, Md. Mahfuzur Rahman Shah², Ji-Hyeok Lee¹, Min-Cheol Kang¹, Kwon O-Nam³, Joon-Baek Lee² and You-Jin Jeon¹^,4^,*

¹Department of Marine Life Science, Jeju National University, Jeju 690-756, Korea
²Jeju Sea Grant Center, Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, College of Ocean Sciences Jeju National University, Jeju 690-756, Korea
³Marine Biology Center for Research and Education, Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung 210-853, Korea
⁴Marine and Environmental Research Institute, Jeju National University, Jeju 695-814, Korea

*Corresponding Author

Email: youjinj@jejunu.ac.kr

ABSTRACT

Marine microalgae are a promising source of organisms that can be cultured and targeted to isolate the broad spectrum of functional metabolites. In this study, two species of cyanobacteria, Chlorella ovalis Butcher and Nannchloropsis oculata Droop, one species of bacillariophyta, Phaeoductylum tricornutum Bohlin, and one species of Dinophyceae, Amphidinium carterae (Hulburt) were cultured and biomasses used to evaluate the proximate comical compositions. Among the determined proximate chemical compositions of the cultured marine microalgae, the highest content of crude proteins and lipids were exhibited in P. tricornutum and A. carterae, respectively. Solvent-solvent partition chromatography was subjected to fractionate each of the cultured species and separated n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and aqueous fractions. Nitric oxide production inhibitory level (%) and cytotoxicity effect on lipo-polysaccharide-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages were performed to determine the anti-inflammatory activity. N. oculata hexane and chloroform fractions showed significantly the strongest anti-inflammatory activity at 6.25 μg mL-1 concentration. The cancer cell growth inhibition (%) was determined on three different cell lines including HL-60 (a human promyelocytic leukemia cell line), A549 (a human lung carcinoma cell line), and B16F10 (a mouse melanoma cell line), respectively. Among the extracts, C. ovalis ethyl acetate and A. carterae chloroform fractions suppressed the growth of HL-60 cells significantly at 25 and 50 μg mL-1 concentrations. Thus, the cultured marine microalgae solvent extracts may have potentiality to isolate pharmacologically active metabolites further using advance chromatographic steps. Hence, the cultured marine microalgae can be described as a good candidate for the future therapeutic uses.

Key words: Amphidinium carterae; anticancer; anti-inflammatory effect; Chlorella ovalis; cultured marine microalgae; Nannchloropsis oculata; Phaeoductylum tricornutum