Tuberculosis is a dreaded disease, which causes innumerable death worldwide. The emergence of drug resistance strains makes the situation devastating. Therefore, for better management of public health, it is mandatory to search for new anti-mycobacterial agents. In this context, the current study investigated two edible marine algae, Ulva lactuca and Ulva intestinalis, for the probable source of new anti-mycobacterial agents. To test the anti-mycobacterial activity, alcoholic extracts of these two algae were spotted on the Mycobacterium smegmatis lawn. Upon incubation, clear zone was observed at the spots. It indicated that these two extracts have anti-mycobacterial activity. In addition, their anti-biofilm property was also tested. It was found that both the extracts inhibit the mycobacterial biofilm development as well as they can disperse the preformed mycobacterial biofilm. Since these two are capable of dispersing preformed mycobacterial biofilm, it is possible that in the presence of either of these two extracts, isoniazid and rifampicin can kill biofilm encapsulated mycobacterium in combinatorial therapy. Consistent with the hypothesis, rifampicin and isoniazid killed mycobacteria that were present in biofilm. Thus, these two extracts augment the activity of rifampicin and isoniazid upon biofilm dispersal. Moreover, treatment of different cell lines with these two extracts exhibited no or little cytotoxic effects. Thus, these two agents have the potential to be good therapeutic agents against mycobacterial diseases.

结核病是一种可怕的疾病，它在全世界造成无数人死亡。耐药菌株的出现使情况变得灾难性。因此，为了更好地管理公共卫生，必须寻找新的抗分枝杆菌药物。在此背景下，目前的研究调查了两种可食用的海藻，石莼和肠石莼，作为新的抗分枝杆菌剂的可能来源。为了测试抗分枝杆菌活性，这两种藻类的酒精提取物被点在耻垢分枝杆菌上草地。孵育后，在斑点处观察到透明区域。表明这两种提取物具有抗分枝杆菌活性。此外，还测试了它们的抗生物膜性能。发现这两种提取物都能抑制分枝杆菌生物膜的形成，并且它们可以分散预先形成的分枝杆菌生物膜。由于这两种能够分散预先形成的分枝杆菌生物膜，因此在这两种提取物中的任何一种存在下，异烟肼和利福平可以在组合治疗中杀死生物膜包裹的分枝杆菌。与假设一致，利福平和异烟肼杀死了存在于生物膜中的分枝杆菌。因此，这两种提取物增强了利福平和异烟肼对生物膜扩散的活性。而且，用这两种提取物处理不同的细胞系没有或几乎没有细胞毒性作用。因此，这两种药剂有可能成为针对分枝杆菌疾病的良好治疗剂。