Larvicidal activity, molluscicide and toxicity of the essential oil of Citrus limon peels against, respectively, Aedes aegypti, Biomphalaria glabrata and Artemia salina

Abstract

In this present work, we tested the larvicidal activity, molluscicide and toxicity of the oil extracted from Citrus limon peels, respectively against third stage larvae of Aedes aegypti, snail Biomphalaria glabrata, and Artemia salina. For this, we extract the essential oil by hydrodistillation. Then, we identified and quantified the components by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). We tested the larvicidal and molluscicidal activity, respectively, using the method adopted by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization. We calculated the lethal concentration (LC50) from the Probit method for the three biological activities with 95 %. The results of the chromatographic analysis showed that the oil has 58.81% of Limonene (major constituent) and 0.11% α-Mulene (minority component). The essential oil presented lethal concentration (LC50) for larvicidal activity, molluscicide and toxicity, respectively at 15.48, 13.05 and 743.35 mg∙L-1. Therefore, the essential oil is active against larvae of A. aegypti and snail B. glabrata and non-toxic against larvae of A. salina.

Chemical composition, in vitro larvicidal and antileishmanial activities of the essential oil from Citrus reticulata Blanco fruit peel

“…Larvicidal and insecticidal activities have already been evaluated in EOs from C. sinensis, C. limon, C. grandis, C. aurantifolia, C. hystrix, C. maxima and C. medica (Araújo et al, 2016;Gomes et al, 2019;Sarma et al, 2017Sarma et al, , 2019Soonwera, 2015). High larvicidal activity could be due to the high limonene concentration (85.7%), a botanical insecticide which has been patented as an active agent of larvicidal formulations (Dias and Moraes, 2014).…”

Extraction Yield, Chemical Composition, Preliminary Toxicity of Bignonia nocturna (Bignoniaceae) Essential Oil and in Silico Evaluation of the Interaction

“…The oil proved to be highly toxic (LC 50 =4.2±3.3 μg mL −1 ), which indicates 12 times more activity than the lapachol cytotoxic standard (LC 50 =22.0±1.9 μg mL −1 ). Some examples of other essential oil samples, with different plant origins and different biological functions, are: Citrus limon (LC 50 =743.35 mg L −1 ), [32] Hyptis suaveolens (LC 50 =49.72 μg mL −1 ), [33] and Syzygium aromaticum (LC 50 =0.59±0.04 μg mL −1 ) [34] . Low LC 50 values in Artemia salina demonstrate that the extract is highly toxic and harmful to humans, and should therefore be administered with care to avoid poisoning [33,35] …”

Chemical composition and larvicidal activity of essential oil of the bark of Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck

“…Citric compounds, for the most part, consist of limonene [16]. Previous studies show that this compound alone or as a major constituent in plants has larvicidal activity against Aedes aegypti [6,7,17]. Among citrus species with high limonene content, we highlight Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck.…”

“…We carried out the collection and cultivation of Aedes aegypti larvae according to the methodology proposed by Gomes et al (2019) [6]. We collected the eggs at the Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Campus do Bacanga in São Luís Maranhão, through three black polyethylene buckets, with a capacity of 500 mL each, where we put water and insert two eucatex straws for the mosquito oviposition.…”

“…Within this perspective, we highlight larvicides based on extracts or oils distilled from plants. Previous studies have shown the larvicidal activity of some plants [4][5][6][7][8][9], due to high biodegradability, low toxicity to mammals [10,11], impediment of ovoposition, inhibition, growth and reproduction against mosquito species [12,13] and in some cases with greater durability than synthetic products [14,15]. Generally, the biological activity of a plant is attributed to the component in greater quantity, in which case limonene is highlighted.…”