ASSESSMENT OF CRUDE EXTRACT YIELD AND In-vitro ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF SEA STAR FROM PHILIPPINES

Echinoderms have been reported recently to contain many bioactive compounds with interesting pharmaceutical activities. Of the five classes of echinoderms, a higher number of new marine natural products were isolated from sea stars and sea cucumbers. The archipelagic nature of the Philippines allows it to support habitats of vast diversities of aquatic organisms, including sea stars. Still, a lot of these marine organisms remained unstudied in terms of their pharmacological and biological activities. Thus, this study aimed to determine the crude extract yield, antioxidant activity, and IC50 values of common sea stars in the Philippines. Standard methods were utilized to determine the crude extract yield, while DPPH radical scavenging activity was used to determine the antioxidant activities of aqueous, ethyl acetate, and hexane extracts. In terms of crude extract yield, aqueous extract consistently had the highest yield. In terms of antioxidant activity, the aqueous extract had the highest IC50 values for A. planci and P. nodosus compared to the other solvents used. Overall, the aqueous extract of A. planci had the highest antioxidant activity. It is recommended that further studies should be conducted in isolating and elucidating the antioxidant compounds from these species.