Phytochemical Screening and In Vitro Antibacterial,Antioxidant and Anticancer Activity of AmphiroaFragilissima (Linneaus) J V Lamoroux

Marine natural products have attracted the attention of biologists and chemists the world over for the last five decades. The active metabolites, also known as biogenic compounds, produced by several species of marine macro- and micro-algae, have antibacterial, antialgal, antimacro fouling and antifungal properties, which are effective in the prevention of cancer, and many other diseases have other likely uses, e.g. in therapeutics. The common major compounds like proteins, carbohydrates, steroids, glycosides can be extracted using polar solvents such as Methanol, Ethyl acetate and Hexane during Phytochemical process. These results were compared with the recently reported qualitative phytochemical tests which were used to detect the presence of alkaloids, tannins, saponins, flavonoids, glycosides and phenols from the seaweeds. Of the three solvents tested, Methanol was determined to be the best solvent for isolation of antimicrobial compounds from the tested marine algae followed by Ethyl acetate and Hexane. Among marine the algal extracts tested, some appeared to be specific in their activity against several tested bacteria. This point may be important for the development of specific antibiotics, and further work is needed to identify the compounds causing the activity, to evaluate specific antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria especially those causing the human diseases.