Abstract

Cytotoxic and Genotoxic Effects of Bacopa Monnieri in the Cultured Human Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes

Author(s): Srinivas Rao Bammidi, Sharan Suresh Volluri, Nandam Sree Satya and Meena Vangalapati

Bacopa monnieri is a medicinal herb which has been valued in ayurvedic medicine for its different activities. In the present studies, Bacopa methanolic extract was prepared by Soxhlet extraction and then evaluated for the Cytotoxicity and Genotoxicity in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes.Mitotic Index (MI) Cell Proliferation Kinetics (CPK) and Sister-chromatid exchanges (SCE)were scored to measure the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of the Bacopa extract in cultures set up from the three different healthy donors. The treatment of the cell culture was done employing two different Bacopa methanolic extract concentrations (500 &1000 µg/ml) and the control (did not receive any additive). Our present studies revealed that the MI, CPK and SCES for control are 4.28, 0.472 and 5.813 respectively where as the Bacopa extracts has theMI, CPKand SCES for 500 ìg/ml are 4.09, 0.46 and 5.386 respectively and for 1000 ìg/ml are 3.62, 0.468 and 5.35 respectively. From the results, we can conclude that the MI and frequency of SCES of Bacopa methanolic extracts are almost similar to that of control which indicates that the Bacopa plant extracts has no significant cytotoxicity and genotoxicity effects in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes.