Evaluation of the Mutagenic Potential of Glucocorticoids by Allium cepa

Veronica Passos Cordeiro de Oliveira, Gabriela Rodrigues de Sousa, Mariana Petit Teofilo de Araujo, Lilian Carla Carneiro, Daniela Medeiros Lobo de Andrade, Hellen Karine Paes Porto, Monica de Oliveira Santos and Aroldo Vieira de Moraes Filho

Background and Objective: Corticosteroids are drugs used in the therapy of different types of diseases, such as respiratory, inflammatory, allergic, neoplastic and auto-immune diseases. The wide use of these drugs causes certain concerns related to their harmful effects on health. This work has the objective to evaluate the mutagenic potential of three widely used glucocorticoids (Prednisolone, Dexamethasone and Hydrocortisone) in Allium cepa meristematic root cells. Materials and Methods: The genotoxic potential of the corticosteroid drugs were evaluated using the dosages following the minimum, usual and maximum dosage standards of each of them, the doses being of 100, 1,000 and 2,500 mg for Hydrocortisone, doses of 0.75, 7.5 and 15 mg for Dexamethasone and doses of 5, 20 and 60 mg for Prednisolone, performed by the Allium cepa test. For statistical analysis, the ANOVA one-way test was used, with a significance level α = 0.05, using the statistical package, GrafPad Prism 5.0. Results: The results showed that all doses of the glucocorticoids analyzed induced a significant increase in the index of chromosomal aberrations in a dose-dependent manner, indicating genotoxic potential. Conclusion: According to the results, the corticosteroid called "betamethasone" presented genotoxicity and dose-dependent cytotoxicity.

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