New fatty acids from the Red Sea sponge Mycale euplectellioides

Abstract

Chemical investigation of the Red Sea sponge Mycale euplectellioides afforded two new compounds; hexacosa-(6Z,10Z)-dienoic acid methyl ester (1) and hexacosa-(6Z,10Z)-dienoic acid (2), along with two known compounds: icosa-(8Z,11Z)-dienoic acid methyl ester (3) and β-sitosterol (4). The structures were elucidated by the interpretation of their spectral data. The total methanol extract (TME) of the sponge exhibited potent antimicrobial activity against the different strains at a concentration of 100 mg/mL. All tested fractions did not exhibit any activity against Serratia marcescens and tested fungal strains. The TME and different fractions displayed anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activities at doses of 100 and 200 mg/kg compared with indomethacin (8 mg). The TME exhibited a remarkable hepato-protective effect in CCl₄-induced liver damage compared with silymarin. Furthermore, compounds 1 and 2 displayed weak activity against A549 non-small cell lung cancer, the U373 glioblastoma and the PC-3 prostate cancer cell lines.

Keywords::

• Red Sea sponge
• Mycale euplectellioides
• fatty acids
• anti-inflammatory
• hepato-protective
• cancer growth inhibitory activity

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our deep thanks to Prof. Rob van Soest for taxonomic identification of the sponge, Prof. Robert Kiss for conducting the cancer growth inhibitory assays and Dr Volker Brecht for measuring NMR and MS spectroscopic data.

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest associated with the authors of this paper.

Notes

^1. MarinLit is a marine literature database produced and maintained by the Department of Chemistry. University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Version 2008.