Cytotoxic activity screening of some Turkish marine sponge species

Abstract

Marine organisms have proved to be a source of potent pharmacologically active compounds. More than 15.000 marine products have been isolated and tested during the last 23 years, until 2015. Sponges have been a big source of secondary metabolites with a great diversity of structures and bioactivities. Research studies on these sources have resulted in the identification of various bioactive compounds which were tested for their potential antiinflammatory, antimalarial, antitumour, antiviral, antibiotic, antifouling properties [1, 2]. Turkish coastline totals almost about 8400 km. The sponges found in Turkish water, have not been intensively studied yet. During the course of our studies on Turkish marine sponges, we aimed to screen cytotoxic potentials of Agelas oroides Schmidt, Ircinia variabilis Schmidt, Dysidea avara Schmidt, Dictyonella incisa Schmidt, Axinella polypoides Schmidt, Aplysina aerophoba Nardo. Materials were collected from the Turkish coastline of the Aegean Sea as well as the Mediterranean Sea at depths varying from 10 – 30 m. Sponges were cut into small pieces and extracted with methanol. Cytotoxic activity was performed through HeLa (human cervix epithelial cancer cell) by MTT method [3]. All extracts showed concentration dependent cytotoxic activity. IC50 values were found in a range of 159.0 – 823.0 (µg/mL) as given in the table below. Dictyonella incisa was found to be the most active species among all tested sponges. Due to these promising results the samples will be tested on other cancer and non-cancerous cell lines to detect selectivity as a continuing study.