Department of Pharmacology, Osmania Medical College, Koti, Hyderabad-95
To test mutagenicity and teratogenecity of drugs in plants.
Allium cepa (onion) of known weight is grown first in distilled water at room temperature for three days and later shifted to the drug solution for another three days at room temperature. On the sixth day, the onion is kept in pure water for one more day. The grown roots were then sectioned and stained using Aceto Orecein and studied for abnormal chromosomal morphologies.
Growth in control onions showed all stages of cell division, but when compared with that of onions grown with drugs like thalidomide, chlorpromazine, thyroid drugs, imipramine, oestrogen, cortisone, tetracycline, methotrexate, caffeine, and ergotamine showed altered cell division like cell breakages, chromosome breakages and also abnormal cell divisions. Placebo drugs like calcium channel blockers which had no teratogenic effect in man showed normal cell division and resembled that of the cell division of the control.
The chromosomal study in this model was highly sensitive to both the drugs which produced mutagenicity and teratogenecity in humans, as well as in animals.
