Pterocarpus Santa Mediated Synthesis of Selenium Nanoparticles and Its Cytotoxic Effect

Introduction: Selenium is an important trace element in the human body that plays a role in nutrition and medicine. Selenium research is gaining traction, not only because of its technical applications, but also because of its novel position in life sciences. The brine shrimp lethality bioassay is widely used in the evaluation of toxicity of heavy metals, pesticides, medicines especially natural plant extracts etc. Pterocarpus santalinus, with the common names red sanders, red saunders, red sandalwood, Rakt Chandan, and saunders wood, is a species of pterocarpus endemic to the southern Eastern ghats mountain range of south india. This tree is valued for the rich red colour of its wood. The aim of the present study is to find out the pterocarpus santa mediated synthesis of selenium nanoparticles and its cytotoxic effect.

Materials and methods: Selenium nanoparticles were synthesized using pterocarpus santa and its cytotoxic effect were done in brine shrimp and its lethality is checked.

Results: cytotoxic activity and the number of nauplii were all alive on the first day. After 24 hrs the number of nauplii were dead in all wells except in the 5μl well. The percentage of lethality increased from 50%,100%,100%,100%,100% in the 5µL to 80µL respectively.

Conclusion: pterocarpus Santa mediated synthesis of selenium nanoparticles showed better cytotoxic effect in brine shrimp lethality assay showing emergence of a drug candidate for future research.