Antagonistic Potentials of Marine Sponge Associated Fungi Aspergillus clavatus MFD15

Abstract: The development of resistance to multiple drugs is a major problem in the treatment of these infectious diseases. Multidrug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Candida sp, the major infectious agents have been recently reported in quite a large number of studies. With more intensive studies for natural therapies, marine-derived products have been a promising source for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds. A total of 45 marine fungi were isolated from the two sponges F. cavernosa and D. nigra were screened for antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. The novel basal media formulated in the present study resulted in increased frequency of fungal isolates when compared to all other media used in the present study. The cell free supernatant of fungi exhibiting the broad spectrum of activity was subjected to chemical analysis using different chromatographic systems including TLC, Column and GC-MS. Of the 15 fungal strains, 20% (3 strains) showed potential antagonistic activity against a panel of clinical pathogens used in the present study. Based on the antimicrobial activity of the isolates, Aspergillus clavatus MFD15 was recorded as potent producer displaying 100% activity against the tested pathogenic organisms. The TLC of the crude ethyl acetate extract produced 3 spots with Rf values of 0.20, 0.79 and 0.95, respectively. The active TLC fraction was purified in column chromatography which yielded 50 fractions. The active column fractions were combined and analyzed with FT-IR, UV-Vis and GC-MS. The chemical analysis of the active compound envisaged the active compound to be a triazole, 1H-1,2,4 Triazole 3-carboxaldehyde 5-methyl. The triazolic compound was bacteriostic for S. aureus and bactericidal for E. coli. The triazole treated fabric showed 50% reduction in the growth of E. coli, S. aureus, and S. epidermidis. Thus the purified compound can find a place in the database for the development of fabrics with antimicrobial properties. This is the first report that envisaged the production of triazole antimicrobial compound from sponge associated marine fungi from the Indian coast

A Comparative study on the prevalence of HCC seromarkers among tribal and coastal population

An extensive study on the prevalence of seromarkers (HBsAg and AFP) of hepatocellular carcinoma among two low socioeconomic groups of Karumanthurai tribes and Kanyakumari coastal population was carried out. The results obtained suggest that the mean HBsAg value of tribal was more than that of the coastal population. The mean AFP of elevated and normal cases was found to be invariably significant (P< 0.01) over the two areas. Coastal patients tended to be significantly older than the tribal patients (P < 0.005, Wilcoxon rank sum test). All two racial/geographic regions showed a preponderance of male patients but this tendency was significantly more marked (P < 0.05) in the tribal group than in the coastal sample. Liquor habit and lack of personal hygienic practices were associated with the prevalence of HBsAg and AFP in both the areas. Surprisingly a positive association has been found between the consumption of marine foods and reduced risk of HCC. Thus the reduced risk of HCC among coastal population can probably be due to the development of immunity against HBV due to the dietary pattern of marine food consumption by coastal population