Bioactivity evaluation against Artemia salina Leach of medicinal plants used in Brazilian Northeastern folk medicine.

The brine shrimp (Artemia salina Leach) lethality bioassay offers an advantage in standardization and quality control of botanical products. This test is well correlated with antitumor activity (cytotoxicity) and can be used to monitor the activity of bioactive natural products. This paper reports the bioactivity of ethanol extracts from seven medicinal plants from the Northeast of Brazil (Acmella uliginosa, Ageratum conyzoides, Eugenia uniflora, Plectranthus neochilus, Moringa oleifera, Justicia pectoralis and Equisetum sp.) against Artemia salina. Biological activity was evaluated for extracts at 1, 10, 100, and 1000 µg/mL in triplicate, and the mean lethal concentration values (LC50) were obtained by probit analysis. The species Acmella uliginosa showed the highest bioactivity, and its flower extract was more active than its leaf extract.