A study of the toxicity of dimethoate on human lymphocytes and the ameliorative effect of root extract of Oroxylum indicum (L.) Vent

Objective: To study the toxicity of dimethoate on human lymphocytes and the ameliorative effect of root extract of Oroxylum indicum (L.) Vent.Methods: Human peripheral blood lymphocytes were separated from human blood by HiseptmLSM1077. They were exposed to 20,40,60 and 100 mM concentrations of dimethoate for 1 hour and the DNA damage was assessed by fluorescent comet assay. The toxicity of the insecticide was also tested by MTT assay.Results: It was found that the number of cells with no damage decreased with the rise in concentration of dimethoate and there was a dose dependent increase in the number of damaged cells (9-98%). In MTT assay the viability of control cells was taken as 100% and after 2 hours of exposure to various concentrations of dimethoate, there was dose dependent decrease in viability. The viability of treated cells increased after incubation with 50% of the root extract of Oroxylum indicum (L.) Vent. However, no ameliorative effect was observed when the treated lymphocytes were incubated with crude root extract.Conclusions: Thus the experiment supports the fact that 50% of root extract of Oroxylum has an ameliorative effect on the lymphocytes which were subjected to the dimethoate toxicity.