Nutritional Value and Biological Activities of Sea Cucumber <i>Holothuria scabra</i> Cultured in the Open Pond System

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the production of H. scabra in an open pond culture system and to evaluate the nutritional value and biological activities. H scabra in this study was successfully grown with an average size 15.3 cm and weight 132.7 g after an eight month period. The H. scabra cultured was rich in protein content (73.41%). The extracts obtained from the soxhletation method showed potential antioxidant and anticancer activity against MDA-MB-231 breast cell cancer lines, with the greatest antioxidant activity of 5.97 ± 0.95 TEAC (based on the ABTS method). The activity is related to the highest total flavonoid content (249.96 mg QE/100 g). The soxhlet and maceration extracts also showed potent cytotoxic activity against human breast cancer MDA-MB 231. These data indicated that by culturing H. scabra in an open pond system could provide a high quality of sea cucumber in terms of biomass yield and biological activity.