Studies on the Bioactivity of Diflubenzuron on Caenorhabditis elegans PDF

Keywords

diflubenzuron, Caenorhabditis elegans, egg production

Abstract

The present study shows that the population growth of Caenorhabditis elegans was significantly reduced after treatment with 5-40 µg/ml of the wettable formulations of diflubenzuron, a phenyl benzoyl urea compound (P< 0.01), whereas treatment with similar concentrations of the analytical grade diflubenzuron in acetone or dimethyl sulphoxide were less effective. The percentage reduction in population growth of C. elegans was shown to be greatest (62-99%) in treatments with wettable formulations of diflubenzuron (5-40 µg/ml). Formulation B of diflubenzuron has the lowest EC50 value: 0.2 µg/ml. The study also shows that diflubenzuron significantly affects egg production of C. elegans (P < 0.05) at low concentrations (20 µg/ml) while other biological activities such as development, survival, feeding and movement are not significantly affected (P < 0.05). About 56, 85 and 91% reduction in egg production was observed in treatments with 5, 10, 20 µg/ml diflubenzuron for 96 hr. respectively.