Antibacterial and antifungal activities of some marine diatoms in culture

Abstract

Non-axenic unialgal cultures of eleven marine diatoms were screened against 13 pathogenic bacteria and 8 pathogenic fungi by agar disc diffusion method. The lipophilic and aqueous extracts of 6 diatoms which showed high antibacterial

<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";="" mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";color:black;mso-ansi-language:en-in;="" mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:hi"="" lang="EN-IN">activity were separately screened against the same bacterial strains and two diatoms which showed high antifungal activity were screened against the same fungal strains. Gram positive bacteria, <i>Aspergillus niger </i>and <i>Cryptococcus neoformans </i>were the most susceptible pathogens. The diatom <i>Thallassiothrix frauenfeldii </i>showed the highest activity. Lipophilic extracts were highly active against the pathogens <span style="font-size:14.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:hiddenhorzocr;="" color:black;mso-ansi-language:en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:="" hi"="" lang="EN-IN">tested.</span></span>