Health Promoting Effects of Phytochemicals from Brassicaceae: A Review.

Over the past several years, natural antioxidants have attracted considerable interest as potential treatment for a wide variety of disease states, including cancer and other causes e.g. chronic inflammatory diseases and aging. Therefore, plant derived antioxidants are now receiving a special attention as they possess good antioxidant properties and hence a worldwide trend towards the use of natural phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables have been reported. Numerous epidemiological studies indicate that consumption of cruciferous vegetables is associated with prevention of cardiovascular diseases and reduced incidence of cancers of the gastrointestinal tract and other sites. The substances that seem to be responsible for these properties are phenolic compounds (phenolic acids, flavonoids, polyphenols etc.) and sulphur-containing organic compound glucosinolates and their derived products. The present review focuses on the health promoting effects of phytochemicals and their beneficial bioactivities in Brassicaceae.

Allium Cepa Root Chromosomal Aberration Assay: A Review.

Higher plants, an important material for genetic tests to monitor various pollutant present in the environment. Among the plant species, Alium cepa has been used to evaluate chromosome aberrations and disturbances in the mitotic cycle. Now days, it has been used to assess a great number of genotoxic/antigenotoxic agents, which contributes to its increasing application in environmental monitoring. The A. cepa is commonly used as a test organism because it is cheap, easily available and handled and has advantages over other short-term tests. Among the endpoints of A. cepa root chromosomal aberrations, detection of chromosomal aberration have been the most used one to detect genotoxicity/ antigenotoxicity along the years. The mitotic index and chromosomal abnormalities are used to evaluate genotoxicity and micronucleus analysis used to verify mutagenicity of different chemicals. The Allium cepa root chromosomal aberration assay is widely used to determine genotoxic and antigenotoxic effects of different plant extracts.