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Adulticidal and repellent properties of Cassia tora Linn. (Family: Caesalpinaceae) against Culex quinquefasciatus, Aedes aegypti, and Anopheles stephensi

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Abstract

Mosquitoes have developed resistance to various synthetic insecticides, making its control increasingly difficult. Insecticides of botanical origin may serve as suitable alternative biocontrol techniques in the future. The adulticidal and repellent activities of crude hexane, chloroform, benzene, acetone, and methanol extracts of the leaf of Cassia tora were assayed for their toxicity against three important vector mosquitoes, viz., Culex quinquefasciatus, Aedes aegypti, and Anopheles stephensi. The adult mortality was observed after 24 h of exposure. All extracts showed moderate adulticidal effects; however, the highest adult mortality observed was found in methanol extract. The LC50 and LC90 values of C. tora leaf extracts against adulticidal activity of (hexane, chloroform benzene, acetone, and methanol) C. quinquefasciatus, A. aegypti, and A. stephensi were the following: C. quinquefasciatus LC50 values were 338.81, 315.73, 296.13, 279.23, and 261.03 ppm and LC90 values were 575.77, 539.31, 513.99, 497.06, and 476.03 ppm; A. aegypti LC50 values were 329.82, 307.31, 287.15, 269.57, and 252.03 ppm and LC90 values were 563.24, 528.33, 496.92, 477.61, and 448.05 ppm; and A. stephensi LC50 values were 317.28, 300.30, 277.51, 263.35, and 251.43 ppm and LC90 values were 538.22, 512.90, 483.78, 461.08, and 430.70 ppm, respectively. The results of the repellent activity of hexane, chloroform, benzene, acetone, and methanol extracts of C. tora plant at three different concentrations of 1.0, 2.5, and 5.0 mg/cm2 were applied on skin of forearm in man and exposed against adult female mosquitoes. In this observation, this plant crude extracts gave protection against mosquito bites without any allergic reaction to the test person, and also, the repellent activity is dependent on the strength of the plant extracts. These results suggest that the leaf solvent plant extracts have the potential to be used as an ideal eco-friendly approach for the control of mosquitoes. This is the first report on mosquito adulticidal and repellent activities of the reported C. tora against mosquito vectors from Southern India.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. K. Sasikala, Professor and Head, Department of Zoology, Bharathiar University for the laboratory facilities provided. The authors are grateful to Mr. N. Muthukrishnan, technician, and Mr. A. Anbarasan, lab assistant, National Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC), Mettupalayam, Tamil Nadu for their help in mosquito collection and for the mosquito samples provided for the present work.

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  1. Division of Entomology, Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, 641 046, Tamil Nadu, India

    Duraisamy Amerasan, Kadarkarai Murugan, Kalimuthu Kovendan, Palanisamy Mahesh Kumar, Chellasamy Panneerselvam & Jayapal Subramaniam

  2. P.G. Research & Department of Advanced Zoology and Biotechnology, Loyola College, Nungambakkam, Chennai, 600 034, Tamil Nadu, India

    Samuel John William

  3. Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, 202-24, Taiwan

    Jiang-Shiou Hwang

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  1. Duraisamy Amerasan
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Correspondence to Kalimuthu Kovendan.

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Amerasan, D., Murugan, K., Kovendan, K. et al. Adulticidal and repellent properties of Cassia tora Linn. (Family: Caesalpinaceae) against Culex quinquefasciatus, Aedes aegypti, and Anopheles stephensi . Parasitol Res 111, 1953–1964 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-012-3042-3

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