Abstract

EFFECT OF CAPECITABINE ON BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS (ONION ROOT TIPS, BACTERIAL AND HUMAN DNA)

Dr. V. Venugopal Rao, Belinda Dsilva, M. Anusha, M. Sravani*, K. Monali and A. Sai Durga

Abstract

Environment means the natural world, as a whole or in geographical area, especially effected by human activity. Recent studies have shown that environment is not only polluted by contaminants but also by improper disposal of drugs. Since 1990’s water contamination by pharmaceuticals has been one of the environmental issues of concern. Most of the pharmaceuticals are deposited in environment through human consumption and excretion and are often filtered ineffectively by waste water treatment plants which are not designed to manage them. Once in the water they can have diverse subtle to moderate effects on organisms.Chemotherapy drugs are designed to kill rapidly growing cells such as those in a cancer tumor. Due to their disruptive action on DNA replication, practically all biological entities could be harmed by these drugs. The aquatic organisms are particularly vulnerable to these drugs. We took an anticancer chemotherapeutic drug Capecitabine (Xeloda) as an example and studied it’s effect on cell division and DNA kinetics. Xeloda is diluted to different concentrations and tested on Onion root tips, Bacterial DNA and Human DNA extracted from bacterium E.coli and human blood respectively. In mitosis we observed that roots exposed to the drug solution for about 2, 3, and 4 hours at a concentrations 1mg, 3mg, 5mg and 7mg showed cell and chromosomal damage . The bacterial and human DNA were exposed to the drug solutions of various concentrations and were incubated at different time periods, later the optical density values were taken at 610nm . The result obtained showed that the DNA is denatured and damage indicated by increasing trend in values while increase in concentration as well as incubation time.

Keywords: Capecitabine, Cell division (Onion root tips), DNA denaturation.