SCREENING OF MEDICINAL-PLANTS FOR INDUCTION OF SOMATIC SEGREGATION ACTIVITY IN ASPERGILLUS-NIDULANS

Knowledge about mutagenic properties of plants commonly used in tradit ional medicine is limited. A screening for genotoxic activity was carr ied out in aqueous or alcoholic extracts prepared from 13 medicinal pl ants widely used as folk medicine in Cuba: Lepidium virginicum L. (Bra ssicaceae); Plantago major L. and Plantago lanceolata L. (Plantaginace ae); Ortosiphon aristatus Plume, Mentha x piperita L., Melissa officin alis L. and Plectranthus amboinicus (Lour.) Spreng. (Lamiaceae); Cymbo pogon citratus (DC.) Stapf (Poaceae); Passiflora incarnata L. (Passifl oraceae); Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Zingiberaceae); Piper auritum HB K. (Piperaceae); Schinus terebinthifolius Raddi (Anacardeaceae) and Mo mordica charantia L. (Cucurbitaceae). A plate incorporation assay with Aspergillus nidulans was employed, allowing detection of somatic segr egation as a result of mitotic crossing-over, chromosome malsegregatio n or clastogenic effects. Aspergillus nidulans D-30, a well-marked str ain carrying four recessive mutations for conidial color in heterozygo sity, which permitted the direct visual detection of segregants, was u sed throughout this study. As a result, only in the aqueous extract of one of the plants screened (Momordica charantia) a statistical signif icant increase in the frequency of segregant sectors per colony was ob served, and consequently, a genotoxic effect is postulated.