Antimicrobial properties of sea anemone Anthopleura nigrescens from Pacific coast of Costa Rica

Objective: To evaluate the antimicrobial and antifungal activities of the aqueous and partitioned extract of sea anemone Anthopleura nigrescens(A. nigrescens).Methods: The sea anemone A. nigrescens was collected, minced, homogenized,lyophilized and then further partitioned with diethyl ether, acetone, ethanol and water.These fractions were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against bacterial and fungal pathogens.Results: Acetone extract was found to produce a pronounced inhibition of 7.0 mm against Proteus vulgaris and diethyl ether extract inhibited Pseudomonas aeruginosa with an inhibition zone of 6.5 mm. In antifungal activity, ethanol extract showed good activity against Botrytis cinerea, Trichoderma harzianum and Rhizopus oryzae compared with other strains. Acetone and ethanol extract of A. nigrescens showed activity against all of pathogens tested. Slight activity was observed in the water extract with inhibition zone of 1.5 mm.Conclusions: The present study revealed that sea anemone A. nigrescens may also contain some biologically active agents which have potential activity against pathogenic microorganisms.