Anti-mitotic activity of aqueous leaf extracts of Azadirachta indica A. Juss. and Simarouba glauca DC. On Allium cepa L. root tips

Abstract

Antimitotic activity is referred as the arrest of cell multiplication in mitosis. The present study deals with the evaluation of antimitotic activity of leaf extracts of Azadirachta indica A. Juss. and Simarouba glauca DC. using Allium cepa root tip cells. 50% and 25% of leaf extracts of both the plants were prepared and onion root tips were exposed to each concentration separately. The root tips were then squashed on microscope slides and mitotic indexes were calculated. The results indicated that the average mitotic index of Allium cepa were considerably decreased with higher concentrations of both plant extracts in comparison with the control. The chromosomal aberrations observed during this study are revealing the cytotoxic effect of extracts of the selected leaves for preventing cell proliferation. The results of present study provides information about how effective these plants in terms of their medicinal value and also to understand why these plants can be used for developing a new anti-cancer drug.