Anticancer Activity of Protein Extract from Perna viridis (Green Mussel) and Meretrix meretrix (Great Clam)

A large proportion of the sea offers untapped sources of potential drugs with promising activities due to a large diversity of marine habitats and environmental conditions. The natural products isolated from molluscs and their structural analogues are particularly well represented in the anticancer compounds in clinical traits. The protein extract from molluscs has several advantages as a very promising material for antimicrobial and antitumor drugs without any side effects. Many bioactive components such as peptides, proteins, enzyme and enzyme inhibitors have been purified and identified from Meretrix meretix in recent years. They have their functional effects including antihypertension, hypolipidemic, antineoplastic and antioxidant effects have been proved. The species Perna viridis commonly known as the Indian green mussel is a widely distributed edible mytilid seen all along both east and west coast of India. It is been sparsely included in pharmacological studies and found to be active against all influenza, herpes and hepatitis viral strains. P. viridis had cancer preventive effects, antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, antihyperglycemia, anti-inflammatory and antiparasitic activities. In this present study, protein was extracted from P. viridis and M. meretrix, washed, dialyzed and observed in SDS-PAGE and assayed for anticancer activity against Human lung cancer cell lines (A549) and Cytoxocity for Vero cell lines (green monkey kidney). Protein extract from P. viridis had more bands than protein from M. meretix. The crude protein from mussel killed cancer cells (A549) upto 99.1 % whereas clam killed cancer cells upto 96.2 %. The extracted crude protein from mussel had the cell viability of 13.6 % in 11 and 80.9 % in 132. But the crude protein from clam had cell viability of 5.4 % in 11 and 71.8 % in 132 dilution. The result shows that crude protein from green mussel had more anticancer effects than clam. Perna viridis had less cytoxocity towards Vero cells than Meretix meretix.