Cytotoxic activity of the crude extract and derived fractions from the sea anemone <i>Telmatactis panamensis</i> against cancer cell lines

Sea anemones are considered a source of bioactive compounds with important pharmacological properties. In this study, we assessed the cytotoxic activity of Telmatactis panamensis and derived gel filtration fractions against the MCF-7 breast cancer and C6 rat glioma cell lines. The crude extract induced a concentrationand time-dependent response, reducing the viability of C6 cells from 38.76 to 1.90% with concentrations of 50–500 μg/mL at 24 h and from 11.81 to 0.73% at 48 h. In MCF-7 cells, the extract reduced viability from 61.71 to 20% and from 12.07 to 0.61% at 24 and 48 h, respectively. Fraction 1 provoked the highest cytotoxic activity in the C6 cell line, followed by fraction 3 and fraction 2. Lower sensitivity to the fractions was shown in MCF-7 cells, with only fraction 3 reducing viability by up to 50%. Both the extract and the fractions displayed low or no cytotoxicity in the normal breast cell line Hs 578Bst, suggesting that they present selectivity towards breast cancer cells over normal cells. The results support that T. panamensis represents a potential source for the discovery of biologically active compounds against tumor cell lines.