Genotoxicity evaluation of pesticide profenofos by applying dominant lethal test on Culex quinquefasciatus

Abstract

The present paper deals with the genotoxicity evaluation of profenofos by applying dominant lethal test (DLT) on Culex quinquefasciatus taken as an experimental model. For this, the males hatched from the larvae treated with LC20 of pesticide were crossmated with normal females and the results were based on the number of hatched and unhatched eggs laid by these females. Mean percentage frequency of unhatched eggs was as low as 3.97 in the normal stocks as compared to treated stocks in which the frequency of unhatched eggs had increasedto 9.50. The statistical analysis of the data from treated groups gave values of 9.50±1.35 as against 3.97± 0.38 in the control groups. Profenofos induced significant (p<0.05) dominant lethality.