title: Cyanobacteria, Lyngbya aestuarii and Aphanothece bullosa as antifungal and antileishmanial drug resources.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate two cyanobacteria isolated from different origins i.e. Lyngbya aestuarii (L. aestuarii) from brackish water and Aphanothece bullosa (A. bullosa) from fresh water paddy fields for antifungal and antileishmanila activity taking Candida albicans and Leishmania donovain as targets.
  
  
  METHODS
  Biomass of L. aestuarii and A. bullosa were harvested after 40 and 60 d respectively and lyophilized twice in methanol (100%) and redissolved in methanol (5%) for bioassay. Antifungal bioassay was done by agar well diffusion method while antileishmanial, by counting cell numbers and flageller motility observation of promastigotes and amastigotes from L. donovani. Fluconazole and 5% methanol were used as control.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both the cyanobacteria were found to be potent source of antifungal activity keeping fluconazole as positive control, however, methanolic crude extract (15 mg/mL) of A. bullosa was found more potent (larger inhibition zone) over that of methanolic crude extract of L. aestuarii. Similarly antileishmanial activity of crude extract (24.0 mg/mL) of A. bullosa was superior over that of methanolic crude extract of L. aestuarii (25.6 mg/mL).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Antifungal and antileishmanial drugs are still limited in the market. Screening of microbes possessing antifungal and antileishmanial activity drug is of prime importance. Cyanobacteria are little explored in this context because most of the drugs in human therapy are derived from microorganisms, mainly bacterial, fungal and actinomycetes. Thus in the present study two cyanobacterial strains from different origins showed potent source of antifungal and antileishmanial biomolecules.
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, India.
authors.forename: Maheep
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Manoj Kumar
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Tripathi
authors.forename: Akanksha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Jalaj Kumar
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Gour
authors.forename: Rakesh Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Ragini
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tilak
authors.forename: Ravi Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Asthana
mesh_terms: D000935:Antifungal Agents / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000981:Antiprotozoal Agents / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D002176:Candida albicans / Q000187:drug effects*; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000737:chemistry*; D004777:Environment; D007893:Leishmania donovani / Q000187:drug effects*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D021261:Parasitic Sensitivity Tests
chemical_list: D000935:Antifungal Agents; D000981:Antiprotozoal Agents
keywords: Antifungal; Antileishmanial; Cyanobacteria; Secondary metabolite