Lethality Bioassay Using Artemia salina L.

Summary

This work aims to evaluate and review the Artemia salina lethality bioassay procedure, also identified as brine shrimp lethality assay. This simple and cheap method gives information about the general toxicity (considered as a preliminary toxicity evaluation) of samples, namely, natural products.

Abstract

Natural products have been used since ancient times to produce medicines. Nowadays, there are plenty of chemotherapeutic drugs obtained from natural sources and used against a plethora of diseases. Unfortunately, most of these compounds often display systemic toxicity and adverse effects. In order to better evaluate the tolerability of selected potentially bioactive samples, brine shrimp (Artemia salina) is generally used as a model in lethality studies. The A. salina test is based on the ability of the studied bioactive compounds to kill the microcrustaceans in their larval stage (nauplii). This method represents a convenient starting point for cytotoxicity studies, as well as for the general toxicity screening of synthetic, semisynthetic, and natural products. It can be considered a simple, quick, and low-cost assay, compared to many other assays (in vitro cells or yeast strains, zebrafish, rodents) generally suitable for the aforementioned purposes; moreover, it can be easily performed even without any specific training. Overall, A. salina assay represents a useful tool for the preliminary toxicity evaluation of selected compounds and the bio-guided fractionation of natural product extracts.

Introduction

Natural products from plants, animals, or microorganisms have been a growing area of interest over the years in the development of new bioactive molecules because of their varied range of biological and pharmacological activities¹. However, the associated side effects, drug resistance, or inadequate specificity of the agents, especially when used as anticancer drugs, represent the major factors that can lead to ineffective treatment^1,2.

Over the last few decades, several plant-derived cytotoxic agents have been discovered, some of them used as anticancer agen....

Protocol

1. Equipment preparation

1. Acquire commercially available hatching equipment. Select a suitable place to set up the hatching equipment (Figure 2A). Place the funnel-shaped container in the black support (included in the set) and turn the funnel in a suitable direction to see the level mark and the tap.
2. To make hand-made migration equipment, cut the top of two 0.5 L (5.8 cm diameter) plastic bottles to obtain a final height of 12 cm. Create a hole of 1.5 cm diameter on one side at 7 cm from the bottom in each bottle and insert a 13 cm rubber tube (1.3 cm outer and 0.9 cm inner diameter) between the two ....

Results

The general toxicity of some natural products recently studied by our group was evaluated through the brine shrimp lethality bioassay. Four extracts (Pa- P. ambigerus; Pb- P. barbatus; Pc- P. cylindraceus; and Pe- P. ecklonii) from Plectranthus genus, known for their antioxidant activity (unpublished results), were tested. Additionally, two natural compounds (1 and 2) obtained from Plectranthus spp., and three semi-synthetic derivatives (3, 4, 5; .......

Discussion

During the last years, the scientific community has increased its attention toward alternative models for toxicity screenings²¹. Beside A. salina lethality bioassay, other methodologies are usually performed for the evaluation of sample tolerability and include vertebrate bioassays (such as rodents), invertebrates (such as zebrafish), in vitro methods using yeast strains or cells, and in silico methods^{22,23,.......}

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
24-well plates	Thermo Fisher Scientific, Denmark	174899	Thermo Scientific Nunc Up Cell 24 multidish
Aluminium foil	Albal	-	Can be purchased in supermarket
Artemio Set	JBL GmbH and Co. KG, D-67141, Neuhofen Germany	61066000	Can be purchased in pet shops
Binocular microscope	Ceti, Belgium	1700.0000	Flexum-24AED, 220-240 V, 50 Hz
Bottles	-	-	0.5 L Diameter: 5.8 cm; Height: 12 cm
Brine shrimp cysts	JBL GmbH and Co. KG, D-67141, Neuhofen Germany	3090700	Can be purchased in pet shops
Brine shrimp salt	JBL GmbH and Co. KG, D-67141, Neuhofen Germany	3090600	Can be purchased in pet shops
Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)	VWR chemicals	CAS: 67-68-5	99% purity
Discartable tips	Diamond	F171500	Volume range: 100 - 1000 µL
Eppendorf microtubes	BRAND	7,80,546	Microtubes, PP, 2 mL, BIO-CERT PCR QUALITY
Erlenmeyer flask	VWR chemicals	4,47,109	volume: 100 mL
Glass beaker	Normax	3.2111654N	Volume: 1000 mL
Gloves	Guantes Luna	GLSP3	-
GraphPad Prism	GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA	-	GraphPad Prism version 5.00 for Windows, www.graphpad.com, accessed on 5 February 2021; commercial statistical analysis software
Home-made A. salina Grower	-	-	Home made: two plastic bottles connected by a hose
Hot glue	Parkside	PHP500E3	230 V, 50 Hz, 25 W
Incubator	Heidolph Instruments, Denmark	-	One Heidolph Unimax 1010 equipment and one Heidolph Inkubator 1006
Light	Roblan	SKYC3008FE14	LED light bulb
Micropipettes	VWR chemicals	613-5265	Volume range: 100 - 1000 µL
Potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7)	VWR chemicals	CAS: 7778-50-9	99% purity
Pump ProAir a50	JBL GmbH and Co. KG, D-67141, Neuhofen Germany	-	Included in the Artemio Set+1 kit
Rubber tube	-	-	1.3 cm outer and 0.9 cm inner diameter
Stirring rod	VWR chemicals	441-0147	6 mm, 250 mm
Termometer	VWR chemicals	620-0821	0 - 100 °C