Tuberculosis is a dreaded disease, which causes innumerable death worldwide. The emergence of drug resistance strains makes the situation devastating. Therefore, for better management of public health, it is mandatory to search for new anti-mycobacterial agents. In this context, the current study investigated two edible marine algae, Ulva lactuca and Ulva intestinalis, for the probable source of new anti-mycobacterial agents. To test the anti-mycobacterial activity, alcoholic extracts of these two algae were spotted on the Mycobacterium smegmatis lawn. Upon incubation, clear zone was observed at the spots. It indicated that these two extracts have anti-mycobacterial activity. In addition, their anti-biofilm property was also tested. It was found that both the extracts inhibit the mycobacterial biofilm development as well as they can disperse the preformed mycobacterial biofilm. Since these two are capable of dispersing preformed mycobacterial biofilm, it is possible that in the presence of either of these two extracts, isoniazid and rifampicin can kill biofilm encapsulated mycobacterium in combinatorial therapy. Consistent with the hypothesis, rifampicin and isoniazid killed mycobacteria that were present in biofilm. Thus, these two extracts augment the activity of rifampicin and isoniazid upon biofilm dispersal. Moreover, treatment of different cell lines with these two extracts exhibited no or little cytotoxic effects. Thus, these two agents have the potential to be good therapeutic agents against mycobacterial diseases.

Department of Chemical Sciences Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata Mohanpur West Bengal India

Department of Microbiology University of Calcutta Kolkata West Bengal India

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Bauer AW, Kirby WM, Sherris JC, Turck M (1966) Antibiotic susceptibility testing by a standardized single disk method. Am J Clin Pathol 45:493–496 DOI

Blanchette KA, Orihuela CJ (2012) Future perspective on host–pathogen interactions during bacterial biofilm formation within the nasopharynx. Future Microbiol 7:227–239 DOI

Brennan MJ (2017) Biofilms and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Infect Immun 85:e00411–e00417 PubMed PMC

Brown AK, Papaemmanouil A, Bhowruth V, Bhatt A, Dover LG, Besra GS (2007) Flavonoid inhibitors as novel antimycobacterial agents targeting Rv0636, a putative dehydratase enzyme involved in Mycobacterium tuberculosis fatty acid synthase II. Microbiology 153:3314–3322 DOI

Chojnacka K, Saeid A, Michalak I (2012). The possibilities of the application of algal biomass in the agriculture. Chemik 66 :1235–48

Deepa S, Venkateshwaran P, Vinithkumar NV, Kirubagaran R (2017). Bioactive Propensity of Macroalgae from the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Pharmacogn J 9 : 815–820

Deveau AM, Miller-Hope Z, Lloyd E, Williams BS, Bolduc C, Meader JM, Burkholder KM (2016) Antimicrobial activity of extracts from macroalgae Ulva lactuca against clinically important Staphylococci is impacted by lunar phase of macroalgae harvest. Lett Appl Microbiol 62:363–371 DOI

El Gamal AA (2010) Biological importance of marine algae. Saudi Pharm J 18:1–25 DOI

Esteban J, García-Coca M (2018) Mycobacterium Biofilms. Front Microbiol 8:2651 DOI

Jun JY, Jung MJ, Jeong IH, Yamazaki K, Kawai Y, Kim BM (2018). Antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities of sulfated polysaccharides from marine algae against dental plaque bacteria. Mar Drugs 16 : 301. https://doi.org/10.3390/md16090301

Kandale A, Meena AK, Rao MM, Panda P, Mangal AK, Reddy G, Babu R (2011) Marine algae: an introduction, food value and medicinal uses. J Pharm Res 4:219–221

Kim IH, Lee DG, Lee SH, Ha JM, Ha BJ, Kim SK, Lee JH (2007) Antibacterial activity of Ulva lactuca against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Biotechnol Bioprocess Eng 12:579–582 DOI

Kim CT, Kim TO, Shin HJ, Ko YC, Choe YH, Kim HR, Kwon YS (2018) Bedaquiline and delamanid for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: a multi-center cohort study in Korea. Eur Respir J 51:1702467 DOI

Lopes LAA, dos Santos Rodrigues JB, Magnani M, de Souza EL, de Siqueira-Júnior JP (2017) Inhibitory effects of flavonoids on biofilm formation by Staphylococcus aureus that overexpresses efflux protein genes. Microb Pathog 107:193–197 DOI

Mukherjee G, Mukherjee K, Das R, Mandal RS, Roy I, Mukhopadhyay B, Sil AK (2020) Allyl piperidine-1-carbodiothioate and benzyl 1H-imidazole 1 carbodithioate: two potential agents to combat against Mycobacteria. J Appl Microbiol. https://doi.org/10.1111/jam.14762

Pérez MJ, Falqué E, Domínguez H (2016) Antimicrobial action of compounds from marine seaweed. Marine Drugs 14:52 DOI

Pooja S (2014) Algae used as medicine and food-a short review. J Pharm Sci Res 6:33

Pratt R, Daniels TC, Eiler JJ, Gunnison JB, Kumler WD, Oneto JF, Strait LA, Spoehr HA, Hardin GJ, Milner HW, Smith JHC (1944) Chlorellin, an antibacterial substance from Chlorella. Science 99:351–352 DOI

Shannon E, Abu-Ghannam N (2016) Antibacterial derivatives of marine algae: an overview of pharmacological mechanisms and applications. Marine Drugs 14:81 DOI

Singh RS, Walia AK (2018) Lectins from red algae and their biomedical potential. J Appl Phycol 30:1833–1858 DOI

Tomioka H (2005) Development of new antituberculosis drugs: strategies for new drug targets and drug delivery. Drug Des Rev Online 2:427–434 DOI