evaluation of cytotoxic and antioxidant activity and total phenolic content of some soft corals from the persian gulf

Marine soft corals contain a variety of secondary metabolites with diverse, biological activities, including cytotoxic and anti-oxidant. the aim of this study was to evaluate the total phenolic content, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of some soft corals of persian gulf including: junceella juncea, cavernularia sp., white menella sp., brown menella sp., virgularia sp., sinularia compressa, sinularia variablis and sinularia polydactyla were collected from persian gulf and extracted by maceration with methanol-ethyl acetate (1:1) solvent. the extract was evaporated and the total phenolic content was evaluated by using the folin- ciocalteu reagent. the antioxidant activity of corals was tested by using dpph photometric assay and cytotoxic activity of them against mcf-7 and ovcar-3 cancer cell lines were performed. the cell survivals of mcf-7 and ovcar-3 cell lines were decreased by increasing the concentration of the extracts. the brown menella sp. showed the highest cytotoxic activity against mcf-7 with ic_50 values of 325.45±2.57 μg/ml and s. polydactyla showed the highest cytotoxic activity against ovcar-3 cell line with ic_50 values of 260.99±7.93 μg/ml. white menella sp. showed the highest antioxidant activity with ic_50 values 0.056 μg/ml. finally cavernularia sp. had the most polyphenol content with 186.33 mg/l.