Cytotoxicity and antiproliferative activity of fractions isolated from <i>Fucus spiralis</i> seaweed

In the last decades, nature has played a significant role as source of new drugs and recent trends in medicines research emphasize that marine environment has a high potential for discovery of new pharmaceutical compounds. Harsh chemical and physical conditions in the marine environment provide a production of quite specific and potent active molecules. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antitumor activity of isolated fractions obtained from seaweed Fucus spiralis on three human tumor cell lines (HepG-2; MCF-7; SH-SY5Y). In this study, five fractions obtained by Vacuum Liquid Chromatography (VLC) from <i>Fucus spiralis</i> methanolic extracts were tested on HepG-2, MCF-7 and SH-SY5Y cells through cytotoxicity and anti-proliferative assays. The results were obtained the according MTT method. The highest cytotoxicity was exhibited by F3 fraction on HepG-2 cells and by F1 and F5 fractions on SH-SY5Y cells, reduced the cells viability (1 mg/ml; 24 hours) in 83%, 97% and 91%, respectively. The smallest IC50 was exhibited by F1 fraction on SH-SY5Y with 308.0µg/ml. In cell proliferation assays, F1, F3, F4 and F5 fractions showed anti-proliferative activity on all cell lines tested. (1 mg/ml; 24 hours). However, the effects were more marked on HepG-2 and SH-SY5Y cells. The smallest IC50 was exhibited on SH-SY5Y cells by F1 and F3 fraction with an IC50 of 153.2 and 136.4µg/ml, respectively. In conclusion, <i>Fucus spiralis</i> is a promising source of new molecules with therapeutically applications in cancer.