Brine shrimp toxicity and invitro antimalarial activity of Citrus aurantifolia (Christm.) Swingle against Plasmodium falciparum 3D7

Malaria is one of the most prevalent, devastating parasitic infectious diseases in the world. In an attempt to search for new antimalarial compounds efforts are being made to do preliminary screening of aerial parts of the plant Citrus aurantifolia (Christm.) Swingle (family Rutaceae) at early flowering and fruiting stages against chloroquine sensitive Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 strain. The plant extract were prepared in three extract forms: Ethyl acetate, Methanol and aqueous extract using standard procedure. The highest antimalarial activity was observed with ethyl acetate extract (IC50 42.73 μg/mL) as compared to methanolic extract (IC50 94.18 μg/mL) followed by aqueous extract (IC50 >100μg/mL).The toxicity of the extract was monitored with the brine shrimp lethality assay and showed no toxicity in all solvent extract tested. The preliminary phytochemical screening of aerial parts of the plant showed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids and glycosides in all the three solvent extracts may contain antiplasmodial molecule that could be isolated by bio-guided phytochemical studies.