Evaluation of Acute Toxicity of Flubendiamide (39.35%) by In vivo and In silico Approach

Flubendiamide is a synthetic insecticide that belongs to the class diamides which is used to control a variety of pests, particularly lepidopteran insects. Indiscriminate use of these can lead to the presence of residues in the produce which can be harmful. Hence this study was undertaken to estimate the toxicity of Flubendiamide in brine shrimp model and the possible targets using molecular docking studies. Commercially available flubendiamide (39.35%) was purchased from local market. Ascending concentration of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 µg/ml of Flubendiamide were prepared by serial dilution in salt water. Brine shrimp were treated with above mentioned concentrations and the number of live mobile and dead shrimp were recorded 24 hours after exposure. An Insilico study was conducted to explore the possible binding sites of Flubendiamide with the proteins Caspase 8, Bax, BCl2, TNF alpha, Caspase 3, and Bad proteins of humans. Molecular docking experiments were performed using docking program Auto Dock Tools- 1.5.7. Ink. There was a dose dependent mortality of the brine shrimp with no mortality at 5 and 100 per cent mortality at 500 µg/ml. The LC50 was found to be 44.87µg/ml. After docking studies, the binding energies of the ligand flubendiamide for the receptors were found as -3.90 kcal/mol for Caspase 8. From the study it could be concluded that high concentration of flubendiamide can cause toxicity and it may induces apoptosis by activating extrinsic pathway.