Résumé
The widespread use of pesticides is usually connected with serious problems of pollution and health hazards. The possible mutagenic nataure of some agricultural chemicals has been noted. The ability of "Sethoxydim" and "Starane" to induce chromosomal abnormalities in mouse spermatocytes was investigated. Male Swiss mice were treated orally by gavage once with the doses 25, 50, 75 mgkg[-1] b.wt. of "Sethoxydim" and 20, 40, 80 mgkg[-1] b.wt. of "Starance" and samples were taken 24 h after the treatment. A repeated daily treatment with dose of 25 mg "Sethoxydim" mgkg[-1] b.wt. and 20 mg "Starane" kg[-1] b.wt. were given for 14 successive days and samples were taken 24 h post treatment. The percentage of chromosomal aberrations in diakinesis metaphase I spermatocytes increased in a dose dependent manner and wss found to be statistically significant after high and repeated doses. It reached 6.0 +/- 0.5% and 5.8 +/- 5.8 +/- 0.7% [P < 0.05] after treatment with 75 mgkg[-1] b.wt. "Sethoxydim" and 80 mgkg[-1] bwt. "Starane" respecdtively compared with 22 +/- 0.9% after treatment with "Mitomycin C". The repeated doses of 14 x 25 mg "Sethoxydim" kg[-1] b.wt. and 14 x 20 mg "Starane" kg[-1] b.wt. induced 7.6 +/- 0.6% and 6.0 +/- 0.7% [P < 0.01], respectively. The two herbicides induced abnormal chromosomal association including univalent [X-Y] and autosomal univalent as well as structural chromosome aberrations. Sethoxydim" and "Starane" induced a dose- dependent increase in the percentage of abnormal sperm heads. Their highest values were 5.1 +/- 0.70% and 4.45 +/- 0.79% [P <0.05] after oral treatment with "Sethoxydim" and "Starane", respectively compared with 17.7 +/- 0.44 [P < 0.01] after treatment with "Mitomycin C". The results indicated that herbicides "Sethoxydim" and "Starane" have a remarkable cytogenetic effect on spermatocytes and sperm heads of the mouse when used as high and repeated doses