Bioassay Screening of the Essential Oil and Various Extracts of Fruits of Heracleum persicum Desf. and Rhizomes of Zingiber officinale Rosc. using Brine Shrimp Cytotoxicity Assay

In the present work, the bioassay screening of the essential oil and various extracts of two plants including fruits of Heracleum persicum Desf. and rhizomes of Zingiber officinale Rosc. have been studied with brine shrimp test. There is only one report about cytotoxicity of H. sphondylium in literature and so H. persicum has been used as second selection. At first essentials oil and various extracts of two plants including petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol, ether and aqueous were provided. Then, different concentrations of them were prepared. These fractions were evaluated for toxicity using Brine Shrimp Lethality assay (BSL). Each of fractions was assessed by two methods of disk and solution. Survivors were counted after 24 h. These data were processed in Probit-analysis program to estimate LC50 values (the concentration at which 50% lethality was observed) with 95% confidence intervals for statistically significant comparisons of potencies. In disc method, methanol extract of Z. officinale (LC50=28.3134 μg/ml) showed the most activity in comparison with positive standard of potassium dichromate (LC50=23.2893 μg/ml); but in solution method, essential oil of H. persicum ( LC50=0.0071 μl/ml) was the most active fraction in comparison with potassium dichromate (LC50=27.7528 μg/ml). Totally, among tested fractions, essential oil of the H. persicum has been exhibited the most cytotoxicity. The essential oil of H. persicum was analyzed by GC-MS. The major constituents were hexyl butyrate and octyl acetate.