Ponnan Arumugam, Siva Kamalakannan and Marudhamuthu Murugan
Mentha spicata is a common medicinal and edible plant in India and used in the ayurvedic system of medicine to treat various ailments including as a memory enhancer. The present study is aimed to evaluate the modulatory effects of Mentha spicata (Linn.) against 4?nitroquinoline- 1-oxide (4-NQO) induced chromosome damage and oxidative stress in mice. Experiments were conducted with eight groups of either sex of mice. Ethanol extract (EE) of three doses (80, 160 and 320 mg/kg body weight-bw) with or without 4-NQO along with vehicle control (25% DMSO in water) were administered orally for five consecutive days. 4-NQO (7.5 mg/kg bw) was injected intraperitoneally on the sixth day, and the animals scarified the following day. 4-NQO enhanced the frequency of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (MnPCEs) by about 4.2 times the control value, 15.78 MnPCEs/2500 PCEs. Pretreatment with EE, significantly reduced the MnPCEs frequency (50-69%) induced by 4-NQO. Moreover, 4-NQO enhanced the lipid peroxidation (LPO) by about 60% with decrease of enzymatic antioxidants in the range 27-41% and 38-60% for nonenzymatic antioxidants over the respective controls. Pre-treatment with the EE, brought down 4-NQO induced LPO significantly with in a dose dependent manner. All the measured antioxidants are positively modulated by the EE. The modulated values at high doses are either comparable with the controls or even higher than the control values.
