The use of biological assays to evaluate botanicals

adopted four “bench top ” bioassays which do not require higher animals to screen and direct the fractionation of botanical extracts in drug discovery efforts. These are: 1. The brine shrimp lethality test (BST) (a general bioassay), 2. The inhibition of crown gall tumors on discs of potato tubers (an antitumor bioassay), 3. The inhibition of frond proliferation in duckweed (a bioassay for herbicides and plant growth stimulants), and 4. The yellow fever mosquito larvae lethaliw test (a bioassay for pesticides). The materials and procedures for those bioassays will be briefly described. The authors ’ results in applying these simple methods in the discovery of Annonaceous acetogenins will be presented to illustrate their successful use. The BST is especially suggested as an inexpen-sive, simple, and rapid means of standardization of bioactivity in heterogeneous botanical products