Cytotoxic effects of marine endophytic fungi extracts against melanoma (CRL6475) cancer cells

Melanoma has showed rapid incidence rate and associated with multi-drug resistant resulting in high mortality rate. Thus, immediate search for new compounds that has potential in treating resistant melanoma are needed. Endophytes produce enormous amount of active metabolites, especially fungal endophytes. Marine endophytic fungi are proven to have great bioactivity. In this study, endophytic fungi extracted from seaweeds was used to investigate its cytotoxic effects against melanoma cancer cells (CRL-6475). These marine endophytic fungi (Gracilaria arcuata Zanardini : MV, Gracilaria coronopifolia J. Agard : CN, and Acanthophora spicifera:ED) were extracted from local seaweeds at Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan. Marine endophytic fungi (CN, MY & ED) were grown for one month on PDA supplemented with I% artificial sea salts. Ethyl acetate extraction method had been used to obtain the extracts. Five different concentrations (0.01 µg/ml, 0.1 µg/ml, 1.0 µg/ml, 10 µg/ml, and 100 µg/ml) were used for each of the extracts for 24 hours. The cytotoxic activity were measured by using MTT assay. The results in express in IC50 values. The three marine endophytic fungi showed inhibition against melanoma cells with different IC50 values which is 534.55 µg/ml, 251.79 µg/ml and 171.16 µg/ml for MV, ED and CN respectively. CN extract had the lowest IC50 value followed by ED and MV. Despite the high value of IC50 further study should be done to obtain additional information about these endophytic fungi extracts.