Recovery of Aliphatic Fatty Acids from Red Seaweed Champia parvula (C. Agardh) and Its Antifungal Action

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antifungal activity of seaweed Champia parvula and identification of active compounds for this action. In this regard, C. parvula crude extracts were obtained from n-hexane, ethyl acetate, chloroform, methanol, and water used to study the antifungal action. Results showed that methanolic extract had potent action against C. albicans, C. tropicalis, T. mentagrophytes, and A.flavus, with the highest inhibition of 16.7 mm found against C. tropicalis. Minimum inhibition concentration at 12.5 and minimum fungal concentration at 25 μg/mL were found in the methanolic extract. Therefore, to identify the bioactive compound for this antifungal action in the methanolic extract, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) were used. The RP-HPLC had three peaks with retention times at 3.30, 3.86, and 4.73 min, showing the presence of ester fatty acid compound. Further, these compounds were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gas chromatography (GC), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), which showed the presence of long-chain aliphatic fatty acid like eicosanoic acid with formation of oct-1-en-3-ol compounds attached.

KEYWORDS:

• Seaweed
• antifungal
• fatty acids
• eicosanoic acid
• C. tropicalis

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Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank the Research Department of Botany & Algal Biotechnology, Pachaiyappa’s College, Chennai, for the facilities provided to perform this study. Other technical facilities provided at Fiji National University (FNU) are highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.