Modulating effect of a hydroxychalcone and a novel coumarin-chalcone hybrid against mitomycin-induced genotoxicity in somatic cells of Drosophila melanogaster.

Chalcones are aromatic compounds found in plants or obtained by synthetic methods. These compounds and their derivatives have been proven to be responsible for a variety of pharmacological properties, including anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities. A second interesting class of compound are coumarins which comprises a large class of molecules derived from phenolic compounds found mainly in plants, exhibiting multiple biological activities such as antioxidant and anti-tumoral properties. Due to the relevance of these compounds, this study aimed to investigate the genotoxic/antigenotoxic effects of the chalcone (E)-1-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-3-(4-methylphenyl)-prop-2-en-1-one (2HMC) and the coumarin-chalcone hybrid [7-methoxy-3-(E)-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)acryloyl-2H-cromen-2-one] (4-MET) using the somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART) in Drosophila melanogaster. To assess the mutagenic and recombinogenic activities, larvae derived from standard and high bioactivation crosses were treated with different concentrations of 2HMC (10, 50, 100 and 400 µg/mL) or 4-MET (5, 50, 100 and 400 µg/mL) for 48 h. Dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO, 0.5%) was the negative control group. The anti-recombinogenic and antimutagenic activities were assessed using larvae from both crosses co-treated with the same concentrations of 2HMC or 4-MET and mitomycin C (MMC, 0.05 mM). SMART revealed no mutagenic or recombinogenic effects since no significant increase of any category of mutant spots was observed (p > 0.05). However, both compounds reduced the frequency of all spots induced by MMC showing antimutagenic and anti-recombinogenic activities in D. melanogaster cells from both crosses. We suggest that the antimutagenic and anti-recombinogenic activities observed in our study may have been a result of the antioxidant activity of 2HMC and 4-MET.