Brine Shrimp Lethality Assay of Some Medicinal Plants Using Artemia franciscana and Artemia salina

This is to determine whether Artemia fanciscana can be used to test toxicity of plants extract. Brine shrimp lethality assay was performed with aqueous, methanol, hexane and chloroform extracts of 16 medicinal plants frequently used in the Sidha and Ayurveda systems of traditional medicine. Hexane extracts of these plants were most toxic to the Brine Shrimp nauplii, followed by methanol extract, chloroform extract and aqueous extract regarding the lethal dose LC50 of Artemia. All these extracts gave positive results in the brine shrimp lethality test and the shrimp mortality increased with the concentration of extract in the test samples. The LC50 values of Andrographis paniculata, Andrographis lanceolata, Adhatoda vasica, Acalypha indica, Phyllanthus amarus, Vigna trilobata, Indigofera tinctoria, Leucas aspera, Ocimum basilicum. Evolvulus alsinoides were greater than 1000g/ml for Artemia franciscana and A. salina. The LC50 values of Annona squamosa, Centella asiatica, Gymnema sylvestre, Tylophora indica and Ricinus communis were between 500g and 1000g/ml while those of Vinca rosea and Ricinus communis were less than 500g/ml but not less than 100g/ml. Therefore, all these plants can be used in the preparation of medicines without fear of acute toxicity about these medicinal plants. The correlation coefficient between A. fanciscana and A, salina was only 0.02 so that both species may be employed in the brine shrimp lethality test for plant extracts. This investigation recommends that Artemia fanciscana found in Kanyakumari district is suitable animal for the screening of phytochemicals in plants for certain physiological activities and pharmacological potentials.