Hala El-Adawi, Mahmoud Taha, Abdel Fattah Abdel Fattah and Nagwan Youssef
Medical Biotechnology Dept., Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology Institute, P.O.BOX 21934, Alexandria, Egypt
The edible cyanobacterium Arthrospira, is used commercially as feed and food additive and is well known for its bioactive compounds having antiviral, antibacterial or anticancer activity.
In the present work Arthrospira fusiformis (A. fusiformis) was irradiated with different doses of gamma rays (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 kGy) to study its effect on the antibacterial and antiviral activity of A. fusiformis.
It was found that Gamma rays changed the lipid profile of A. fusiformis and the lipids extracted from irradiated cells showed higher anti-hepatitis C (anti-HCV) effect, but the antibacterial effect decreased. It was also observed that increasing Gamma irradiation dose showed increasing anti HCV effect of the respective hot water extracts. Thus Gamma irradiation of A. fusiformis could be manipulated to improve the potentiality of its bioactive compounds.