Understanding the <i>Artemia Salina</i> (Brine Shrimp) Test: PharmacologicalSignificance and Global Impact
Dionisio A. Olmedo, Yelkaira Vásquez, Juan Antonio Morán, Estela Guerrero De León, Catherina Caballero‐George, Pablo N. Solís
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The microplate benchtop brine shrimp test (BST) has been widely used for screening and bio-guided isolation of many active compounds, including natural products. Although the interpretation given to the results appears dissimilar, our findings suggest a correlation between positive results with a specific mechanism of action. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate drugs belonging to fifteen pharmacological categories having diverse mechanisms of action and carry out a bibliometric analysis of over 700 citations related to microwell BST. METHODS: was estimated. A metric study regarding the citations of the BST miniaturized method, sorted by type of documents cited, contributing country, and interpretation of results was conducted on 706 selected citations found in Google Scholar. RESULTS: values <100 μM, most of them belonging to the category of antineoplastic drugs; compounds with different therapeutical uses were found to be cytotoxic as well. A bibliometric analysis showed 706 documents citing the miniaturized BST; 78% of them belonged to academic laboratories from developing countries located on all continents, 63% interpreted their results as cytotoxic activity and 35% indicated general toxicity assessment. CONCLUSION: BST is a simple, affordable, benchtop assay, capable of detecting cytotoxic drugs with specific mechanisms of action, such as protein synthesis inhibition, antimitotic, DNA binding, topoisomerase I inhibitors, and caspases cascade interfering drugs. The microwell BST is a technique that is used worldwide for the bio-guided isolation of cytotoxic compounds from different sources.