Reliable quality of R-phycoerythrin derived from Portieria hornemannii for effective antioxidant, antibacterial, and anticancer activity

•Extraction of phycoerythrin from selected red seaweed P. hornemannii.•The antibacterial activities and antioxidant activities of extracted R-phycoerythrin from P. hornemannii showing significant activity.•The in vitro cytotoxic activity of R-phycoerythrin from P. hornemannii against human colon cancer cell line (HT-29) treatment using the determined IC50 values of 77 to 98 µg/ml. The phycobiliprotein is a light-harvesting fluorescent probe; Phycoerythrin is a pigment used in many industrial, and pharmaceutical applications; including fluorescence resonance energy transfer and flow cytometry. The main objective of the current study was purifying the phycoerythrin in Portieria hornemannii. The phycoerythrin pigment was dialyzed commonly using Q sepharose, but it is high cost. However, the alternative method is DEAE-Sephadex is cost-effective, high- yield, pure compound, and has high activity performance. Then the R-Phycoerythrin (R-PE) compound was extracted in 0.02 M of phosphate buffer (pH–7.2). R-PE investigated the FT-IR, HPLC, SDS-PAGE and including physico-chemical properties. Then the purified R-PE compound was evaluated by an antibacterial, antioxidant, and anticancer activity. The R-Phycoerythrin was showing a maximum inhibition effect of high concentration (IC50value 77.98 µg/ml) against the colon cancer HT-29 cell line. [Display omitted]