ABSTRACT
The aim of the present study is to evaluate, for the first time, antigenotoxic potential of Agaricus bisporus against methyl methanesulphonate induced toxicity in human lymphocyte culture in vitro and in bone marrow cells of albino mice in vivo. The parameters studied included total aberrant cells and the frequencies of aberrations in the bone marrow cells at three exposure durations viz., 16, 24 and 32 h, and for the in vitro method using chromosomal aberrations, sister chromatid exchanges and replication indices as markers. The alcoholic extract of A. bisporus was taken in five increasing concentrations of 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 mg/kg body weight for three in vivo exposure durations viz., 16, 24 and 32 h. Similarly, four doses of extracts viz., 150, 200, 250 and 300 ?g/ml of culture were taken for in vitro durations of 24, 48 and 72 h in the presence as well as the absence of S9-mix. The treatment reduced the total number of aberrant cells ranging from 10.0% to 46.15% and it reduced the total frequencies of aberrations ranging from 198 to 96 against very high aberrations i.e., 227 caused due to methyl methanesulphonate in vivo. The same trends were observed in the in vitro experiments i.e., it reduced chromosomal aberrations from [42.00%, 71.25%, and 83.00% to 20.00%, 39.50%, and 43.00%] at 24, 48, and 72 h of exposure respectively. However when experiments were carried out in the presence of liver S9 fraction, these values were respectively 52.38, 44.56, and 48.34% significant at <0.05 level, likewise it also reduced sister chromatid exchanges from 14.86 +/- 1.44 down to 8.84 +/- 0.75 per cell, whereas the replication index got enhanced from 1.45 to 1.64