Brine shrimp lethality assay of whole plant extracts of Eleusine indica

. Brine shrimp lethality assay (BSLA) is an important method in the evaluation of plant bioactivity for the subsequent isolation of bioactive compounds from the plant extracts which may lead to the development of new drugs. In this study, BSLA was employed to evaluate the potential cytotoxic properties of the whole plant extracts of Eleusine indica. E. indica has been widely used for the treatment of several diseases like kidney problems, diabetes, gastro-intestinal diseases and is used as diuretic. The most common methods of extraction (decoction, absolute ethanol, 50% water - 50% ethanol) were tested to determine cytotoxic effects against the brine shrimp nauplii. Results showed that the best extraction method for the whole plant samples of E. indica is through the use of 50:50 ethanol-water mixture extract. The acute lethal concentration (LC50) of E. indica after 6 h exposure to mixture extract was 153.99 ppm, while the ethanolic extract obtained an LC50 of 409.73 ppm. After 24 h exposure, increased mortalities of brine shrimps were recorded in all prepared extracts. Maximum mortalities (100%) were observed in the three concentrations of 100-1000 ppm in the mixture extract of E. indica. In this respect, E. indica possesses cytotoxic behavior suggesting the presence of potential bioactive chemical components in the plant’s extract.