ABSTRACT
The emergence of resistance by both Plasmodium falciparum and Anopheles stephensi made the search for an alternative environmentally safe plant based insecticide inevitable. Artemisia annua is a well known antimalarial. Present study is an attempt to induce callus production from young leaves of Artemisia annua plant and study its larvicidal activity against larvae of Anopheles stephensi. Callus was initiated by using different concentrations of auxins and cytokinins. A suitable culture media was standardized for optimal growth of callus. Healthy callus cultures were obtained in the slightly modified Murashige and Skoog’s medium + NAA and BAP (0.03 and 0.2 mg l-1 respectively) + Sucrose 20 gm l-1 + Agar 8 gm l-1 within 28 days of inoculation. Callus was successively extracted in order of increasing polarity of solvents. Larvicidal activity, in terms of lethal concentration (LC50) of the callus extract in chloroform was calculated to be 18.45 ± 0.75 ppm after 72 hr against third instar larvae of A. stephensi.
ABSTRACT
Aspergillus was found as a dominant fungi to associate with brands of bindis. Among three potencies of four homeopathic drugs, Lycopodium 1M, Sulphur 1M, and Sepia 30 showed maximum inhibition zone of Aspergillus niger in inhibition zone technique. In poison food technique, Sepia 30M, Tellurium 30M, Sulphur 1M and Lycopodium 200 showed maximum percentage inhibition against A. niger
Subject(s)
Adhesives , Animals , Antifungal Agents/pharmacology , Aspergillus niger/drug effects , Cosmetics , Dermatitis, Allergic Contact/microbiology , Homeopathy , Lycopodium/chemistry , Microbial Sensitivity Tests , Sepia/chemistry , Sulfur/pharmacology , Tellurium/pharmacologyABSTRACT
Leaves of Artemisia annua linn. and Azadirachta indica were extracted in petroleum ether and hexane respectively by different methods of extraction i.e. cold extraction, reflux extraction and soxhlet extraction. The crude extract obtained was tested against third instar larvae of Anopheles stephensi. On comparison of larval mortality of crude extract obtained by these three methods, both soxhlet and reflux extraction method showed 100% mortality at 200 ppm after 48 hr in case of A. annua. However LC50 (20 ppm) value of crude extract obtained by soxhlet extraction showed better results than reflux extraction (35 ppm) method after 72 hr. In case of A. indica, crude obtained by soxhlet showed 100% mortality (after 48 hr) at 250 ppm and LC50 of 69 ppm at 72 hr. Reflux extraction does not show any appreciable mortality even at 250 ppm concentration.