Antifungal and antibacterial activity of Porifera extracts from the Moroccan Atlantic coasts

Abstract

Summary Marine organisms represent a valuable source of new compounds. The biodiversity of the marine environment and the associated chemical diversity constitute a practically unlimited source of new active substances in the field of the development of bioactive products. The antimicrobial activity of the dichloromethane and ethanol extracts of thirteen marine sponges collected from the Moroccan's Atlantic coast (El-Jadida) was tested against two Gram+ and two Gram− human pathogenic bacteria and three pathogenic yeasts using the agar disk diffusion method. All species were active against the bacteria and only three species of them ( Cliona viridis, Cinachyrella tarentine and Haliclona viscosa ) were active against the yeasts. This test revealed that these promising results in vitro open the way for further investigations in order to purify and identify active molecules and determine the antimicrobial activity and toxicity in vivo of these products.