219 Phull et al. Int. J. Biosci. 2017 RESEARCH PAPER OPEN ACCESS In vitro antileishmanial, antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activity of fucoidan from Undaria pinnatifida Abdul-Rehman Phull 1 , Akhtar Ali 2 , Madiha Ahmed 3 , Muhammad Zia 4 , Ihsanul Haq 3 , Song Ja Kim *1 1 Department of Biological Sciences, Kongju National University, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Biochemistry, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 3 Department of Pharmacy, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 4 Department of Biotechnology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan Key words: Fucoidan, Antileishmanial, Antimicrobial, Anticancer, Natural products http://dx.doi.org/10.12692/ijb/11.4.219-227 Article published on October 27, 2017 Abstract Traditional approaches have been reported since a long time for curing and treatment of various ailments. Sulphated polysaccharides from brown seaweeds such as fucoidan have been reported to possess significant antiinflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiviral and antitumor activities. Herein, the antileishmanial, antimicrobial and anticancer activity of fucoidan from Undaria pinnatifida were investigated. The antileishmanial activity was evaluated by MTT assay. The antimicrobial activities were determined by using the agar disc diffusion method. While anticancer activity was determined by using the SRB colorimetric method. Results showed that fucoidan effectively inhibited the growth of Leishmania tropica promastigotes showing mortality rates ranging from 4.2-73.5% with LD50 value of 31.72 µg/ml. The antibacterial and antifungal activities of fucoidanat the concentration of 30µg/disc were tested against gram-positive bacteria (Micrococcus luteus and Staphylococcus aureus),gram-negative bacteria (Salmonella typhimurium)and fungal strains (Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Mucor species). Zones of inhibition obtained were compared with that of different standards cefixime for antibacterial activity and clotrimazole for antifungal activity. The results showed the maximum zone of inhibition of the bacterial growth against S. aureus (15.67±0.76 mm)and fungal growth against A. fumigatus (11.83±1.01) among test organisms. Fucoidan has shown considerable anticancer potential against human liver cancer (HepG2) cells (LD50, 18.01±1.2 μg/ml). Based on these results, it can be concluded that fucoidan as natural products, may serve as leads for the development of new pharmaceuticals having diverse therapeutic potential. * Corresponding Author: Song Ja Kim  ksj85@kongju.ac.kr International Journal of Biosciences | IJB | ISSN: 2220-6655 (Print), 2222-5234 (Online) http://www.innspub.net Vol. 11, No. 4, p. 219-227, 2017