Screening Data Reveals that Spirogyra triplicata, a Fresh Water Algae Induces Robust Anti-Proliferative Activity Against A549 Cells

Introduction: Algae comprise a promising source of novel components with potent therapeutic agents. In particular, algae have been considered as a potential source of new bioactive compounds. The antioxidant data of our previous study with six different algal methanolic extract reveals the presence of high antioxidant, total phenol content and total flavonoid content in Spirogyra triplicata. Thus, we further focused on screening the anti-proliferative activity of six different green algae on five different cancer cell lines like MCF7, A549, HEPG2, REH, MOLT4. Methods: To fulfill our aim we performed MTT assay for testing anti-proliferative activity and DAPI staining for observing nuclear morphology. We also looked into the metabolomic profiling of Spirogyra triplicata by GC-MS chemometric study. Results: The result indicates that after 24 hours of treatment with methanolic extract of Spirogyra triplicata A549 was the most sensitive cell line with IC₅₀ value of 24.07 ± 1.09 μg/ml. Followed by Rhizoclonium fontinale and Hydrodictyon reticulatum with IC₅₀ value of 25.97 ± 1.94 μg/ml and 32.50 ± 1.97 μg/ml respectively. The HEPG2 cell line was the second most sensitive cell line against S. triplicata with IC₅₀ value of 30.20 ± 1.45 μg/ml. The MOLT4 cell line was detected as most resistant cell line against the green algal extract in this study. Though the methanolic extracts of six green algae showed maximum to moderate anti-proliferative activity on different cancer cell line but no significantly affect on normal PBMC was observed. Nuclear fragmentation was observed in a dose dependent fashion by DAPI staining on A549 cells treated with methanolic extract of Spirogyra triplicata. We further looked into the chemo profiling of Spirogyra triplicata by GCMS analysis. The result of GC-MS clearly indicates presence of nineteen major components and twenty-three minor components which have more or less bioactivity and would help in therapeutics in future. Conclusions: In brief this study indicates for the first time that green algae Spirogyra triplicata induces anti-proliferative activity specifically against A549 cell but not in normal PBMC. It can be concluded that Spirogyra triplicata holds a great promise as a good repository of anti cancer compounds which may be used in future drug discovery.