Fig. 8

Concentration-dependent effect of CP + SCOP and ISOX + SCOP on acetylcholinesterase activity and acetylcholine levels. Acetylcholine (ACh) levels (blue bars), acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory activity (red bars), and acetylcholinesterase enzyme activity (green bars) in 168 hpf larvae unexposed to any test compound (i.e. ‘untreated’) and treated with the combinations of scopolamine (SCOP) with Convolvulus pluricaulis (CP) and isoxazole (ISOX), i.e. CP + SCOP and ISOX + SCOP, in varying concentrations have been shown. Two concentrations were tested for each of these combinations. For CP + SCOP, these were 0.19 mg/ml of CP + 3.34 μM of SCOP and 0.38 mg/mL of CP + 6.68 μM of SCOP. For ISOX + SCOP, these were 0.52 mM of ISOX + 3.34 μM of SCOP and 1.04 mM of ISOX + 6.68 μM of SCOP. Both the ACh level (µM) and AChE activity (%) have been expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Three independent experiments were conducted to determine ACh level and AChE activity, and in each of these experiments, three sets of 15–25 embryos were treated with the said concentrations. The larvae were treated with the AChE inhibitor (i.e. ISOX or CP) 1 h before treatment with SCOP. *, **, and *** indicate p-value < 0.5, < 0.01 and < 0.001 of two-tailed unpaired t-test for untreated versus test groups respectively