Investigating the Effects on Cardiac Functionality of Daphnia magna by Residential Chemical Products

Many new residential chemical products have been commercialized with advancements in chemical technology and the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Including herbicides and insecticides, many disinfectants now claim 99.99% bacteria-killing capacity are ubiquitous around the house. It is deemed an urgent issue to make the public aware of the toxicity of new residential chemical products. The acute effects on cardiac functionality induced by the 30-minute incubation were evaluated in serially diluted solutions while measuring the heartbeat of Daphnia. Since they are sensitive invertebrate models and have fundamental biological systems close to those of humans, the Daphnia’s heartbeat change might be used as a model to test the new chemical entities’ tolerability. Eight residential chemical products were chosen, and their heartbeat difference was plotted for dilution factor. The ratio of the testing chemical’s area under the curve (AUC) to ethyl alcohol AUC was defined as a toxic index and compared among the testing articles. The results showed that the toxic index was significantly greater for the groups of Malathion and Triazicide while smaller in lambda-cyhalothrin and geraniol (P<0.05). The order of the toxic index seemed to be fit for the toxicity data. More studies might be needed to clarify the underlying mechanism of such effects.