الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract The sea is an important source of new natural compounds. It has great seasonal fluctuations of air and water temperatures. It is likely that these unusual physical features led to the evolvement of a unique fauna and flora typical only to this region. Consequently, The Red Sea is considered as the richest marine area in biodiversity, this unique biodiversity could be a rich source for novel bioactive substances. Investigations point out that the alcyoniids constitute 77% of the Red Sea soft corals. Sinularia, Lobophytum and Sarcophyton are the most abundant Red Sea soft corals representing family Alcyoniidae. A literature survey on the chemical constituents and the pharmacological actions of different Sinularia species was done and it was found that the active constituents isolated and identified from the Sinularia species belong to several classes which are terpenes, cembranoids and sterols. Sinularia candidula is the subject of the present study. The aim of this thesis is to investigate both the biological activity and the chemical constituents of the Red Sea soft coral Sinularia candidula. The main active fractions showed a promising anticancer activity against a variety of cell lines including HeLa, PC3 and MCF-7 cell lines. It was felt necessary, after the aforementioned promising biological activities and the increasing reports about new compounds with high therapeutic effectiveness, to do in depth investigations about Sinularia candidula in order to explore its chemical constituents as a source of novel secondary metabolites of promising biological value in order to be able to develop it as a pharmaceutical product. present work includes: Investigation of the lipoidal matter of Sinularia candidula: It was done to determine percentages of hydrocarbons and fatty acids. Evaluation of the anticancer activity of the total extract and the main fractions: Potential cytotoxic activities of the main fractions against HeLa, PC3, MCF-7 and HCT cancer cell lines were measured by the Sulpho- Rhodamine-B (SRB) assay. Ethyl acetate:methanol (75:25) fraction displayed strong activity against HeLa cancer cell line, hexane:ethyl acetate (1:1) fraction exhibited high potential cytotoxicity against PC3 cancer cell line and weak activity against MCF-7 cancer cell line, as compared to Doxorubicin as control drug. Chemical investigation of the soft coral Sinularia candidula including isolation, identification and structural elucidation of the available constituents: The soft coral Sinularia candidula was collected by hand using Scuba diving from Safaga at the Egyptian Red Sea. Flash silica column chromatography (normal phase) of the soft coral MeOH/CH2Cl2 (1:1) extract provided several fractions. Extensive chromatography afforded thirteen metabolites. The structure elucidation of the isolated compounds, listed in table (38), was deduced on the basis of spectroscopic methods, (MS, 1D and 2D NMR), physicochemical properties in addition to comparison with literature data |