Effects of some medicinal plant extracts on Vicia faba root tip chromosomes

Six widely used medicinal plants namely, Nerium odorum, Andrographis peniculata, Nyctanthes arbortristis, Phlogacanthus thyrsiflorus, Solanum indicum and Kaempferia galanga were examined for their genotoxicity using plant cytogenetic assay. Exposure of Vicia faba root tips to different doses of the plant aqueous extracts, followed by acetocarmine squash technique revealed that the extracts of N. odorum and S. indicum were mitodepressant and induced higher frequencies of traditional chromosome aberration, abnormal chromosome behaviour and micronucleus, indicating their clastogenic potentials, while the other four plant extracts produced no significant change in all the testing protocols, indicating that they were not clastogenic.