Abstract The marine ecosystem is vast and houses an immense diversity of niches and species. In this context, the phylum Cnidaria is one of the main marine phyla and is present in every ocean on Earth. Cnidarians have cells called cnidoblasts, which may inoculate many toxic compounds. Currently, the search for compounds with pharmacological relevance in the aquatic environment has intensified, and further studies are necessary. In this study, the crude extract from the cnidarian Ceriantheomorphe brasiliensis (CB) tentacles was evaluated for its antitumoral and antiviral activity. For this purpose, the cell viability of different tumor cells and virus-infected cells, after treatment with CB crude extract, was measured by using the MTT assay. The electrophoretic profile of CB crude extract showed proteins in the ranges of 15, 25-50, and 100-250 kDa. Considering that 34.38-53.98 µg of CB was able to kill non-tumorigenic (Vero) cells, antitumoral activity was observed against MCF-7, HEp-G2, and HEp-2 cells since lower concentrations were toxic for these tumors. These promising effects were not observed when Caco-2 and A549 were analyzed. In addition, HEp-2 cells were protected from viral infection when respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was previously treated with CB extract (5.57 µg/ml). Pre-treatment and post-treatment were not effective. Altogether, we expanded the description of antitumoral activities of crude extract from Cnidaria and demonstrated for the first-time the virucidal effect from this phylum.
Pereira et al. (Wed,) studied this question.