Bioactivity of crude extracts of Euphorbia kamerunica Pax using brine shrimp (Artemia salina) lethality assay

Medicinal plants are gaining recognition worldwide in the treatment and control of diseases. In advance nations a good number of plants are screened for their pharmacological activities but less than 25% of plants native to Africa which are been used to treat diseases have been evaluated. In the present study hexane, diethyl ether, ethyl acetate, methanol and aqueous extracts of Euphorbia kamerunica Pax were screened for their cytotoxicity and lethality using the brine shrimp (Artemia salina) assay. Three concentrations (10, 100, 1000 ppm) of each extract were applied in the bioassay and the LC50 determined. The least LC50 value of 0.00 was obtained for hexane extract and the highest value of 13.87 was obtained for aqueous extract using the Finneys probit analysis which indicates high lethality of the extracts and presence of potent cytotoxic compounds in the plant extracts.   Key words: Euphorbia kamerunica, Artemia salina, cytotoxicity, insecticidal compound.