Candida albicans (C. albicans) is an opportunistic pathogen that causes superficial and systemic infections .It is the most common human fungal pathogen and causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Since many of the currently available drugs have undesirable side effects and are ineffective against C. albicans infection, pharmaceutical industries are giving importance to the compounds derived from marine organisms.Seaweeds are one of these marine organisms that have been considered as a source of major metabolites that possess bioactive effects Compounds with antioxidant, antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial activities have been detected in brown, red and green algae.
Altogether, this study aimed to determine the in vitro antifungal activities of some Mediterranean marine macroalgae organic extracts against Candida albicans.
In this study we use petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol for extraction from four seaweed species (Pterocladia capillacea (Gmelin) Bornet et Thuret, Sargassum hornschuchii C. Agardh, Jania rubens (Linnaeus) Lamouroux and Ulva fasciata Delile) collected from Abu-Qir bay (Alexandria, Egypt) were tested for their in vitro antifungal activities against Candida albicans using the agar disk diffusion assay. The Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the algal extracts were determined by broth microdilution method in RPMI 1640 medium in 96well plates according to CLSI guidelines NCCLS and microbial growth determined by measuring the absorbance at 492 nm. The results showed that the methanolic extracts of all tested algae have better results than the other extracts. Whereas, the strongest antifungal inhibition was noted in the methanol extract of Sargassum hornschuchii against candida albicans. Further investigations to prove the exact mechanism, dosage form and complete toxicological studies are a planned for our future work.
Key words: Antifungal activity, Candida albicans, disk diffusion, brothmicrodilution, seaweeds.
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