Toxic And Anti-Cancerogenic Effect Of Brown Seaweed Cystoseira Tamariscifolia

Cystoseira tamariscifolia is a brown alga which represents an important natural biomass on the Moroccan Atlantic coast. Study of the acute toxicity of this species was carried out on Swiss albinos mice. The LD50 was determined through the Spearman-Karber method by injecting the aqueous algal extract to 36 mice organized in lots of 6 animals each for 6 concentrations and the experiments were conducted in triplicates. A dose of 0.5ml of each concentration of the aqueous extract were injected to the mice intraperitonally while the 0.5 ml of saline at 0.9% was injected to the control lot. The anticancerogenic effect study was carried out on murin myelom cells P3/X63-Ag8.653, using different concentrations of the aqueous extract of the alga. The results obtained show a toxic effect of the alga on the mices with LD50 of 738.61±34 μg of alga/ g of body weight. A significant anticancerogenic effect of the extract was also detected on myelom cells; it is propotionnel to the used concentrations.