Anticarcinogenic and antimutagenic activity of Alstonia scholaris on the albino mice bone marrow cells and peripheral human lymphocyte culture against methyl methane sulfonate induced genotoxicity.
BACKGROUND
The use of medicinal plants in modern medicine for the prevention and treatment of cancer is an important aspect. For this reason, it is important to identify antitumor promoting agents present in medicinal plants commonly used by the human population.


METHODS
We used in vivo and in vitro methods using chromosomal aberrations (CAs), sister chromatid exchange (SCE) and replication index (RI) as markers, exposed by methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) as well as alcoholic extract of Alstonia scholaris in five increasing concentrations (200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 mg/kg body weight for in vivo and 150, 200, 250 and 300 μg/ml of culture) and of three different durations of 24, 48 and 72 h in the presence as well absence of S9 mix.


RESULTS
Extracts of Alstonia reduces the total aberrant cells ranges from 10.0% to 41.84% and frequencies of aberration in the aberrant cells ranges from 220 to 124 against 290 aberrations causes due to MMS in vivo. Similarly in the in vitro, it reduces CAs (39.62%, 32.83%, and 38.48%) and (45.31%, 44.46%, and 38.34%) at 24, 48, and 72 h of exposure respectively; in the absence as well as presence of liver S9 fraction. It also reduces SCE from 7.70 to 4.20 per cell and enhances RI from 1.45 to 1.64.


CONCLUSIONS
Extracts of Alstonia significantly reduces the number of aberrant cells and frequency of aberration per cell at each concentration and duration of exposure in vivo; and CAs and SCE in vitro and enhances RI.
Department of Zoology, Shibli National (PG) College, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Md Sultan
MS
Ahmad
Department of Zoology, D.S. College, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Sheeba
S
Ahmad
Department of Zoology, Shibli National (PG) College, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Afsar
A
Ali
Department of Zoology, Faculty of Life Science, Section of Genetics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Mohammad
M
Afzal
Alstonia scholaris; anticarcinogenic; antimutagenic; antitumor; ayurvedic medicine; chromosomal aberration