In vitro evaluation of cytotoxic and mutagenic activity of avarol

The cytotoxicity of avarol, a main secondary metabolite of the Mediterranean sponge Dysidea avara, was in vitro screened by MTT assay against four human tumour cell lines. The colon HT-29 tumour cells practically showed to be the only sensitive ones towards this organic compound. No toxicity was found against the fetal lung fibroblast MRC-5 cells at the concentrations tested. In comparison with doxorubicin, used as a positive control, avarol actually exhibited at least 588-fold less toxicity towards normal MRC-5 cells. Finally, comet assay indicated that DNA fragmentation was almost fivefold higher upon the treatment with doxorubicin, compared to avarol. The obtained results have actually confirmed that avarol scaffold may contribute to development of new cytostatics inspired by nature.