“
“Malaria during pregnancy is a major public health problem in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world.1 Malaria

causes serious illness and death amongst children and pregnant women. There are between 300 and 500 million malaria infections and 1 million malaria-attributed deaths worldwide each year.2 As malaria vaccines remain problematic, chemotherapy still is the most important weapon in the fight against the disease.3 The antimalarial drugs including chloroquine, quinine, mefloquine, pyrimethamine, and artemisinin are currently used in malaria treatment. Part of the reason for the failure to control malaria is the spread of resistance to first-line antimalarial drugs, cross-resistance between the limited number of drug families available, and some multidrug resistance.4 Marine sponges have a potential to provide future drugs against important diseases, such as malaria, cancer and a range of viral diseases.5 Of BI 6727 cell line 10,000 marine sponges, 11 genera are known to produce bioactive compounds, and only three genera (Haliclona, Petrosia and Discodermia) are known to produce anti-malarial, anticancer and INK1197 molecular weight anti-inflammatory compounds.6 Sponge from the genus of Petrosia commonly found in Situbondo waters, East Java, Indonesia is Neopetrosia sp. Marine sponge, Neopetrosia sp. is a newly revived genus name, but in the past, it might have been described as Xestospongiasp. 7 They

produced many potential bioactive metabolites including

cytotoxicity: Renieramycin J, Araguspongine B, D, M, and three 5α,8α-epidioxy sterol, 7 and 8 antileishmanial: Renieramycin A from the Satsunan island, Japan 9 and antimicrobial substance: N-ethylene methyl ketone derivative of renierone, 1,6-dimethyl-7-methoxy-5,8-dihydroisoquinoline-5,8-dione, renierone and mimosamycin. 10 The study aims below at finding out antimalarial effect in vivo the Plasmodium berghei infected mice and its safety profile in acute toxicity assay in mice when given orally. A sponge of the Neopetrosia exigua (order Hadromerida, family Suberitidae) was collected by scuba diving at 8 m depth at Tanjung Pecaron Bay, near Situbondo (Indonesia). A voucher specimen, Voucher No.A24354, is deposited at Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Institute Technology of Surabaya. The strain of P. berghei was kindly provided by Dr. Hashida Mohd Sidek, Centre of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, National University of Malaysia. Freezed dried or wet samples were soaked twice in ethanol. Each soaking lasted 24 h. After filtration, solvents were evaporated under reduced pressure in a rotary evaporator and the extracts were combined. ICR mice, male (29 ± 2 g) and female (25 ± 2 g), 7–8 weeks old were used in the experiment. The mice were kept in the stable and fed with standard pellet and water in libitum at Animal House.