Cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of Centella asiatica extract in the cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes

Centella asiatica (CA) is a medicinal herb which has been valued in ayurvedicmedicine for its different activities. In the present studies, CA methanolic extract wasprepared by Soxhlet extraction and then evaluated for the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity incultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes. Mitotic Index (MI) Cell ProliferationKinetics (CPK) and Sister-chromatid exchanges (SCE) were scored to measure thecytotoxic and genotoxic effects of the CA extract in cultures set up from the three differenthealthy donors. The treatment of the cell culture was done employing two different CAmethanolic extract concentrations (500 & 1000 μg/ml) and the control (did not receive anyadditive). Our present studies revealed that the MI, CPK and SCES for control are 4.28,0.49 and 6.08 respectively where as the CA extracts has the MI, CPK and SCES for500μg/ml are 4.07, 0.47 and 5.84 respectively and for 1000 μg/ml are 3.96, 0.46 and 5.52respectively. From the results, we can conclude that the MI and frequency of SCES of CAmethanolic extracts are almost similar to that of control which indicates that the CA plantextracts has no significant cytotoxicity and genotoxicity effects in cultured humanperipheral blood lymphocytes.