DNA Damaging Effects of Lotion vs Electric Mosquito Repellent Assessed via Chickpea Chromosomal Aberration Assay
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38211/joarps.2025.06.323Keywords:
Mosquito repellent, Genotoxicity, Cytotoxicity, Chromosomal aberrationsAbstract
Mosquitoes are the potent vectors of malaria, yellow fever and dengue a common hazard in Sindh Pakistan, since decade. Currently variety of mosquito repellent lotions containing hazardous pesticides has been used by people of Sindh. Therefore, preliminary testing for cellular and genetic toxicity five lotion brands was carried out in comparison to Electric mosquito repellent (EMR). The study was based on germination inhibition and chromosomal aberration assay in Cicer arietinum L. root tip cells. Seeds of chickpea were incubated with 2.5% solutions of lotion and EMR (at distance of 20 inches) for 20, 40 and 60 minutes. Ethyl methane sulfonate was used as positive control and untreated seeds as negative control. Cytological data was recorded at 400 magnification under light microscope. Statistically significant time dependent (p≤0.01) differences in germination inhibition of chickpea were found for three lotion brands and electric repellent. For MI and AI highly significant variation (p≤0.01) were found for all tested lotions specially SMR brand. MI exhibited incubation dependent decrease while reverse the case was for AI. The most frequent chromosomal aberrations induced by all brands of lotion were sticky metaphase and fragmentation. It is concluded that all lotion brands were phyto-genotoxic in plant assay. On the basis of low M.I. and very high A.I. by MMR and SMR were found most genotoxic among the tested lotions and EMR is the safe alternative mosquito repellent. It is recommended to screen repellent lotions in mammalian assay for precise estimation of safe dose for humans
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