Antifungal Efficacy of Marine Macroalgae against Fungal Isolates from Bronchial Asthmatic Cases

Fungal sensitization is very common in bronchial asthmatic cases, and the connection with airway colonization by fungi remains uncertain. Antifungal therapy failure is a significant fraction of the cost and morbidity and mortality in the majority of the asthmatic cases. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the antifungal activity of five marine macroalgae—Acanthaophora specifera, Cladophoropsis sp., Laurencia paniculata, Tydemania sp., and Ulva prolifera—which were tested on selected fungal pathogens isolated from 15 sputum of 45 bronchial asthmatic patients. The highest antifungal activity was observed in ethanol fractions of L. paniculata followed by U. prolifera, Cladophoropsis sp., A. specifera, and Tydemania sp. The minimum fungicidal concentration and minimum inhibitory concentration values of the ethanolic fractions of algal species were found to be 125–1000 µg/mL and 125–500 µg/mL, respectively. The algal extracts contained terpene alcohol, diterpene, steroids, sesquiterpene, and sesquiterpene alcohol, as determined by GC–MS/MS analyses. The present study shows that the marine macroalgae containing bioactive compounds had excellent inhibitory activity against a variety of fungal pathogens, which may be useful for combating fungal infections and recovering from chronic asthmatic states.