Determination of LD50 Value of Zinc Chloride on Swiss Albino Mice

Toxicity is a very very important aspect of any biochemical or pharmacological experiment. Either we develop any metallo drug or a metal suppliment measurement of toxicity of that particular substance and parent substances is very important. The toxicity of a substance can be measured in many ways. Generally it is estimated on the test animal, viz. rats, mice, cat and other animal models. Acute toxicity of a substance can be measured by the calculation of LD50 i.e., the dose of a test substance that will kill 50% of the animals of a particular test species in a given period under controlled and standardised laboratory conditions. LD50 is an initial screening step for the assesment of the toxic characteristic of a substance. An increasing dose is given to the test species and LD50 value is calculated based on the mortality of test species. In general, the smaller the LD50 value, the more toxic the test substance is and vice versa. Zinc is present in all body tissues and fluids.Now it is also considered as one of the important micro element in the biological system.Total body zinc content has been estimated to be approximately 2.0 g for an adult (Hambidge, 1987). Zinc is an essential component of a large number (>300) of enzymes participating in the synthesis and International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 5 Number 5 (2016) pp. 910-913 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com