Toxicity of crude plant extracts using an indicator crustacean: Sea Monkey (Artemia salina)

Sanjeet Kumar 
sanjeet.biotech@gmail.com  
Department of Botany, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack- 753 003, Odisha

Plant species are very useful in traditional medicinal systems. Plants possess many secondary metabolites, which play a lead role in pharmacology. Plants also contain some toxic substances which need to be detected and analysed. The toxic substances are harmful to human health in various ways.  Therefore specific technique or scientific methods are needed for detection of toxicity level of plant extracts for appropriate formulation of either traditional or synthetic drug formulation.  For toxicity test, researchers have been using many mammals and other animals. This laboratory test is very costly and more important is the fact that they need ethical recommendation. Artemia salina, commonly known as Sea Monkey, is a brachiopod crustacean. It is suitable alternative to the toxicity testing of mammals in the laboratory. It has diverse characters which make it a good indicator for toxicity test such as adaptability to wide ranges of salinity, temperature (6 °C to 35 °C), short life cycle and parthenogenatic reproduction strategy. Many toxicity reports of plant extracts are available using this test organism in literature. Krishnaraju et al., (2005) reported the toxicity of some Indian medicinal plants using Brine Shrimp Lethality test. Kumar et al., (2012) reported the toxicity of Bixa orellana using Artemia salina. Bhatanagar et al., (2012) reported the toxic activity of Combretum roxburghii using Artemia salina. Mirzai and Mirzai, (2013) documented the bioassay for toxicity of Iranian medicinal plants using Artemia salina and Artemia uramiana.  The mortality rate of the organisms is directly proportional to the toxicity level of plant extract in a particular concentration. Present work highlights the uses of Artemia salina in toxicity test of plant extracts.

Key Words: Artemia salina, Toxicity, Plant Extracts