Antifungal activity of various solvent extracts of marine brown alga Spatoglossumasperum

Abstract The present investigation has focused to evaluate the antifungal activities of various solvent extracts of marine brown alga Spatoglossum asperum . The antifungal activities were evaluated against three fungal dermatophytes namely Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and one non dermatophyte Aspergillus flavus using disc diffusion method. The maximum activity was recorded from chloroform extract against the non dermatophytic fungi Aspergillus flavus (98.83%) and the methanolic extract showed a significant antifungal activity against dermatophytic fungi Candida albicans (57.14%) and Candida tropicalis (54.75%) as compared to other solvent extracts. Thus, it can be concluded that the methanolic extract of brown seaweed Spatoglossum asperum is more effective on dermatophytic fungi.