Zeitschrift für antimikrobielle Wirkstoffe

Antimicrobial Agents from Microalgae as Potential Source for Treatment of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis : A Short Review.

Abstract

Inam Ullah

Tuberculosis is dreadful disease which cause millions of deaths worldwide each year. The emergence of multidrug resistant strains makes situation ever worse. The search for new drugs used for therapies is enhanced which results in the discovery of some bioactive agents from micro algae which manifest antibacterial activities against these multidrug resistant strains. Many bioactive compounds like unsaturated fatty acids, phenols, polysaccharides, terpenes, lipids, sterols and phenolic compounds have been extracted from different microalgae e.g. I. galbana, C. friebergensis, C. marina, T. gracilis using different solvents like ethanol, chloroform, hexane crude extracts, n-butanol, methane and water have shown to present anti-mycobacterial activities. Present studies show that unsaturated fatty acids show antibacterial activity against multidrug resistance mycobacterium tuberculosis and can be used as alternative to ancient drugs for treatment of tuberculosis.