Mutagenesis vol. 12 no. 4 pp. 265-269, 1997
© 1997 UK Environmental Mutagen Society/Oxford University Press
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Genotoxicity of tetrodotoxin from puffer fish tested in root meristem cells of Allium cepa L.
1Department of Marine Sciences Berhampur-760 007, Orissa, India 2Genetic Toxicology Laboratory, Department of Botany, Berhampur University Berhampur-760 007, Orissa, India
Tetrodotoxin (TTX) extracted and purified from puffer fish Arothron nigropunctatus was tested for genotoxicity employing the root meristem cells of Allium cepa as the assay system. The genotoxicity endpoints investigated were mitotic index (MI), meta-anaphases with spindle aberrations, interphases with micronuclei (MNC) and sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) in metaphase chromosomes. The results demonstrated that TTX inhibited mitosis at concentrations of 
30 µM as evident by the fall of MI, but failed to induce MNC at significant levels at any of the concentrations tested (10–100 µM). TTX was thus proved to be neither clastogenic nor aneugenic in the present study. It was, however, noteworthy that TTX at far lower concentrations, 0.1–5.0 µM, significantly enhanced the frequencies of SCE which indicated possible interference of the toxin in DNA replication and repair.
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