Development of new antimicrobial drugs is vital
Development of new antimicrobial drugs is vital, as current finding suggests that resistance producing against microbial drugs is inevitable. As synthetic drugs produces high health and environment risks, natural compound containing immune-modulatory activity isolated from different organisms gaining popularity as they are ecofriendly. Sponges produces variety of bioactive compounds, most among other organisms. However majority of the study focus compounds isolated from marine sponges, freshwater sponges mainly ignore as far. This study screens, extracts bioactive compound isolated from freshwater sponge Spongilla spp. and purify it by help of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and thin layer chromatography (TLC) respectively forming crude compound.
Antimicrobial activity of crude compound against 3 bacterial fish pathogen strains Aeromonas. salmonicida, Flavobacterium. branchiophilum, Pseudomonas spp. or Vibrio spp. and 3fungal fish pathogen stains Exophiala. spp., Aphanomyces. Invadans and Saprolegnia spp. and their minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the compound is evaluate. Its finding may help in designing new antimicrobial drugs against common fish pathogens in aquaculture.
Resistance against disease increasing day by day which lead to increase the necessity of new drugs discoveries. New researches suggests that new drugs isolates from natural sources are so much important for green heath management and to minimizing the toxicological as well as environmental risks produces by synthetic antimicrobial drugs (Prabha Devi, 2013).
Sponges produces many forms of biological active compounds which possess antimicrobial activities. Researchers isolated many compounds from marine sponges as imuno-modulatory compound but identification from freshwater sponge are still lacking.
Extraction of immune-modulatory compound from natural sources i.e. from fresh water sponge and testing its biological activity against fish pathogens may help in discovery of new drug tip its significance in field of biotechnology. Isolation from natural sources may leads lowering the contamination, environment risks and may also lead in reduction of food insecurity as the drug for aquaculture minimize the ratio of fishes to get infected and die. World’s large population is depending on fishes as their food, either develop country like Japan or poor African countries.
Marine sponges contains variety of bioactive compounds which having immunomodulatory activities. Fresh water sponges may also contain these type of bioactive compounds having antibacterial and antifungal activities which may help fresh water fishes to fight against infections and aid them in increasing their immunity.
Aims to find antibacterial and antifungal activities from fresh water sponges.
Considering the importance of green health management in aquaculture and concern about the contamination, toxicological and environmental risks posed by synthetic drugs has led to an increase in the popularity of developing natural products as a source of ecofriendly compounds possessing antimicrobial activities.
In addition, the evolving resistance of microorganisms to existing antibiotics is becoming major issue not only for humans but also for aquaculture. This threat is increasing day by day causing immense economic losses resulting in food insecurity. Hence, replacement of existing antibiotics with more operational and safer ones has become an important subject to discuss.
Sponges are animals which consider one of the most primitive animal on earth, existing from millions of years by surviving major mass extinct. They are belonging to phylum porifera containing pores although their body. They produces variety of bioactive compound as they cannot move lacking physical defenses, highly susceptible predators such as fishes. Thus, it is not surprising that sponges have developed a wide suite of defensive chemicals to deter predators (Anjum, 2016), biofouling, microbial infections, and overgrowth by other sessile organisms (M. F. Mehbub, 2018).
Previously natural products have traditionally been harvested from terrestrial sources, while from sponges and their associates produces approximately 5,300 different natural known compounds (Bibi, 2016). A major contributing factor to this development is the fact that modern technology has made it easier to gain access to the great biodiversity of life found in the oceans (Margey Tadessea, 2008).
Oceans are most primitive, important and unique form of life on the earth. It provides a huge diversity of living organisms inhabiting diverse micro flora. The marine resources are widely studied nowadays because of numerous reasons. One of the reason is, the oceans cover more than 70% of planet surface and among 36 living phyla known yet, 34 of them are found in marine environments with more than 300000 known species of fauna and flora (Bibi, 2016).
The discovery of penicillin in the mid-twentieth century revolutionized the treatment of infectious disease. Since then, antimicrobial agents have saved the lives and eased the suffering of millions of people. Multi-resistant bacteria threaten to cause new epidemics (Bibi, 2016).
Evidence suggest that development of resistance to any new antimicrobial agents is inevitable (Prabha Devi, 2013). So the evolving resistance has made necessary a search for new antibiotics for human as well as aqua cultural purposes. In the aquatic environment, competition for space and nutrients leads to evolution of antimicrobial defense strategies. This, along with possibly adverse effects on the ecosystem and human health problems, has resulted in restrictions on the use of commercial antibiotics and chemicals in the aquatic environment (G. Annie Selva Sonia, 2008).
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) caused by fungi are increasingly recognized as presenting a worldwide threat to food security. This is not a new problem and fungi have long been known to constitute a widespread threat to plant species. However, pathogenic fungi (mycoses) have not been widely recognized as posing major threats to animal health. This perception is changing rapidly owing to the recent occurrence of several high-profile declines in wildlife caused by the emergence of previously unknown fungi (Matthew C. Fisher, 2012). For more than two decades worldwide and fungal infections are amongst the common diseases in hatchery and aquaculture systems leading to the demise of fish population resulting in great economic loss (Prabha Devi, 2013).
Many structurally diverse marine sponge secondary metabolites have been shown to exhibit antibiotic activities against several Gram-positive bacteria including Streptomyces. pyogenes, Staphylococcus.aureus and Bacillus. subtilis. However many of these natural products are in active against Gram-negative bacteria (Roberta J. Melander, 2016).
In most cases development and production of sponge derived drugs is hindered by environmental concerns and technical problems associated with harvesting large amounts of sponges. But now presence of sustainable source of sponge-derived drug candidates could be generated by establishing a symbiont culture or by transferring its biosynthetic genes into culturable bacteria (Anjum, 2016). There are a few examples of marine derived compounds which have successfully reached the market as therapeutic drugs (Margey Tadessea, 2008).
Multi drug resistant Staphylococcus. aureus (MRSA) formerly particularly problematic in places such as hospitals and nursing homes, is now found in commonly-used places. Scientists have isolated an extract from a sponge found in Antarctica, tested it on MRSA biofilm and found that it eliminate more than 98 percent of MRSA cells. The highly-resistant MRSA infection (USF, 2016). Several strains were identified for their potent antifungal activity, and for both antifungal and antibacterial activities (University, 2018).
Benthic marine invertebrates (Sponges) were found to be a promising source of novel bioactive compounds against human and fish pathogenic bacteria and fungi (Margey Tadessea, 2008). Freshwater poriferans are relatively a less studied group with limited scientific information (Soumalya Mukherjee, 2016). Spongilla. Spp (Porifera: Demospongiae: Spongillidae a common variety of freshwater sponge) is distributed in seasonal ponds and lakes.
Collection and Laboratory Acclimation of Spongilla. Spp:
Protocol is design according to (Margey Tadessea, 2008) and (Prabha Devi, 2013) Spongilla. Spp shallow water sponge will manually collect from the water bodies. Sponges will carefully remove from jetty pylons with a scraper, kept wrap in plastic bags, and will immediately transport to the laboratory. Associated macro organisms (mainly algae and polychaetes) will remove from the biological material before lyophilisation. Samples of Spongilla. Spp will then identify by Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), pool, lyophilize and separately frozen at -20 o C.
Extraction of Bioactive Compound from Sponge:
Extraction protocol as describe by (Margey Tadessea, 2008), (Prabha Devi, 2013) and (G. Annie Selva Sonia, 2008) frozen sponge sample will thaw and extract exhaustively with acetone (Prabha Devi, 2013) or extract thrice with distilled methanol and the pooled organic solution made from each species will filter by suction through a Buchner funnel line with Whatman No. 1 filter paper. (G. Annie Selva Sonia, 2008). Solvent will remove by rotary evaporator. The free aqueous extract thus obtain will transferred into a separating flask and fractionate sequentially using Diethyl Ether (DE) follow by Butanol (Bu) to obtain the DE-fraction and the Bu fractions respectively (Margey Tadessea, 2008). The crude extracts will now screen for antibacterial and antifungal activity.
For Bacterial Pathogens:
Serial dilutions (up to 4 dilutions) will make and spread plated on Luria agar (M. F. Mehbub, 2018) as standardize growth media due to the simplicity and accessibility of its formulation. Plates will incubate at 26°C for 2-3 days. The isolates will repeatedly sub-cultured until pure bacterial isolates will obtain and then store on Luria broth until use.
For Fungal Pathogens:
Serial dilutions (up to 4 dilutions) will make and spread plated on Sabourauds dextrose agar (SDA, Hi Media) containing 50 mgml-1 of antibiotic chloramphenicol to inhibit bacterial growth. Plates will incubate at 26°C for 2-3 days. The isolates will repeatedly sub-cultured until pure fungal isolates will obtain and then store on SDA slants until use. (Prabha Devi, 2013)
Metabolite Purification High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC):
Protocol is set as per (M. F. Mehbub, 2018) and (Prabha Devi, 2013) to assess sponge metabolite profiles, and HPLC analyses will perform as per protocol defined by (M. F. Mehbub, 2018). At constant flow rate, 100 mg of freeze-dried sponge tissue was extracted three times, powdered sponge tissue was transferred to a new tube and dissolved with 1 ml methanol in an ultrasonic tank for 5 min with high energy setting, centrifuged and the pellet retained after transferring the supernatant.
The pellet was extracted twice and the combined crude extracts and finally dissolved with 1 ml methanol. This crude extract was filtered through a 13 mm 0.2 µm Syringe Filter and added to a 2ml tube with glass insert. Then, 50 µl of this filtered solution was injected into the HPLC system described above. The peaks will observe at 200 to 800nm wavelength range.
Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC):
This step is design according to protocol design by (M. F. Mehbub, 2018) and (Prabha Devi, 2013) to further elaborate the nature of the metabolites produced, we used TLC. A slurry of the Diethyl Ether (DE) fraction in silica gel was prepared by dissolving the crude extract in minimum quantity of DE and dried under nitrogen. This dry slurry was loaded onto a silica gel glass column and initially eluted with hexane followed by increasing concentration of diethyl ether in hexane. Next elution was performed using chloroform followed by increasing concentration of methanol in chloroform and finally eluted with methanol. Like fractions were combined on the basis of TLC and the combined fractions were subjected to bioassay screening against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Separation on TLC may be detected under a UV lamp at 254 or 366 nm wavelength range.
Biological Activity:
Antimicrobial activities for the crude fractions and the pure compound against fish pathogens will determine by agar disc diffusion method. Briefly, paper discs of 6mm diameter will impregnate with 25 µg of the crude extract and 10 µg of the pure compound dissolve in diethyl ether. The zone will then measure in millimeter and scored as (– no activity; + mild activity; ++ moderate activity; +++ Significant activity; and ++++ strong activity). Positive and negative control will also use.
For bacterial pathogens discs will place on Mueller Hinton Agar (MHA) plates possessing a lawn of the different strains to be test. The cultures will incubate for 24 hours at 37°C and for fungal pathogens discs will place on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) plates possessing a lawn of the different strains to be test. The cultures will incubate for 48 hours at 27°C to obtain maximum growth in the culture media so as to visualize the clear zone of growth inhibition around each discs. Experiment repeat thrice to know the reproducibility of results
