The Selective Extractions of Sulfoquinovosyldiacylglyceride from 'Spirulina'

Currently, the number of natural products isolated from marine organisms that have the potential for anti-HIV activity is increasing. Sulfoquinovosyldiacylglyceride (SQDG) is a bioactive compound found to exhibit anti-HIV activity and has been isolated from natural sources. This pharmaceutical compound can be extracted mostly from microalgae such as Caulerpa racemosa (Wang et al., 2007), Scytonema sp .(Patterson et al., 1993), Phormidium tenue (Reshef et al., 1997) as well as Spirulina platensis (Blinkova et al., 2001). This study focused on finding a suitable extraction technique in order to achieve a better yield of SQDG from different strains of Spirulina. Various organic solvents were used to extract SQDG from specific strains of Spirulina. SQDG identification was confirmed from the retention time of the standard using thin layer chromatography. The isolated active fraction was scraped from the thin layer chromatography plate and the concentration of SQDG isolated was quantified using Anthrone procedure. From the extracted SQDG, it was clearly found that the various forms of solvent extraction expressed different classes of lipids. The lipid content obtained varied with the different forms of solvent used. The best lipid extraction from Spirulina is found to be the solvent systems of chloroform:methanol (2:1, v/v).