Cytogenotoxic Effects of Ferula asafoetida as Homoeopathic Drug in Vicia faba

Published by Oriental Scientific Publishing Company © 2018 This is an Open Access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted Non Commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cytogenotoxic Effects of Ferula asafoetida as Homoeopathic Drug in Vicia faba

Man established many virtues of natural resources in the field of medicine.The therapeutic agents obtained from plants are used in various system therapeutic viz Homoeopathy, Ayurvedic etc. Homoeopathy is a system of medicine in which the indigenous & crude plant/ animal products are used in medicine.Homoeopathy work on the "Law of simplex" it means administration of a single remedy should be prescribed at a time because when two substrate are mixed together either they form third substance or some of their own properties are lost, so Homoeopathy up holds monopharmacy.In the 4 century B.C. Hippocrate the father of modern medicine observed that large amount of certain natural substances can produce, symptoms in healthy people resembling those caused by these substances can relieve those symptoms, this is the base of Homoeopathy.
Homoeopathy is a form of medicine in which drugs treat whole body & helps it to heal itself.It can be used for the acute & chronic illness in low & high potencies respectively.In this double blind placebo controlled trial, 50 The effects of Aconite were comparatively found better than placebo when Libeu JP, Jobert J. in 1990 were treated children post-operative pain and agitation were given either Aconite or placebo.According to Frei H, Thurneysen 2001 children suffering from acute otitis media, with homoeopathic treatment was compared with placebo to determine whether homoeopathic treatment provided a faster resolution of symptoms than placebo.Gmnunder R, Kissling R. ( 2002).In this controlled, randomised, prospective study, 43 people suffering from chronic low back pain were treated for two months either by homeopathy or by standardized physiotherapy, resulted that the most successful method of treatment was homeopathy.
Frenkel M, Hermoni D.( 2002) has studied on 48 patients were treated for allergic disorders with both homoeopathic and conventional medicines, and monitored for their level of use of the conventional medicines.After 3 months observations, 56% of patients were reduced their conventional medication use by an average of 60%.They observed that homeopathy is better than other kind of medications.
Homoeopathic drugs obtained through various sources like vegetable sources, animal sources, chemical mineral sources etc.The mother tincture is prepared from the whole plant or from the part of it.There are so many extract of plants which are used as Homoeopathic drugs.
The extract of Ferula asafoetida (Heeng) is one of the important & popular Homoeopathic drugs.Heeng is an aromatic gum resin which is obtained by inscision from the carrot shaped roots of plant Ferula asafoetida.This gum resin is grayish or dull yellow in color & consist of organic sulphar compound, volatile oil 5%, containing essential oil of garlic lolly, ally persulphide & turpenes a resin 65%, a ferulic acid, ester oil asaresinotannol free ferulic acid, gum 25% & ash 4%.
Heeng act as stimulant, carminative antispasmodic, expectorant & also antihelminthic diuretic, aphrodisiac & emmenagogue.It is a nervous & pulmonary stimulant & also increases the sexual appetite.Heeng is popular in India for the use like flavoring agent ,as an ingredient in condiments & in many spices mixture.It is fried before being used, raw and unfried heeng cause vomiting.As anesthetic, asafoetida is employed in nemicrania & dental caries.Heeng is also given to increase the lochial after child birth.

Material and Method
The mother tincture of Ferula asafoetida has been purchased from RSBP Bulandshahar & Lord Pharmacy New Delhi.Mother tincture of heeng along with different titration & potencies are used in this investigation.
The seeds of test plant Vicia faba were obtained locally & central state farm C.S.F.Behraich U.P.
Mother tincture of heeng prepared by mixing a particular volume of drug in measured volume of distilled water , by this methods we have prepared 5%,10%,20%,30% solution of heeng .

Mitotic Studies 1.
The effect of heeng as Homoeopathic drug on somatic cell division have been studied by root tip method.

2.
The healthy seed of Vicia faba have been germinated on moist filter paper in sterilized petridishes.

Mitotic index
The mean percentage of mitotic index (MI) was significantly decreased from 12.8 to 12.00 after 24 hrs treatment, as compared to control text.The mitotic index was 14.00-13.6.The higher volume of MI was noticed in 5% conc. of heeng in all duration & the lower volume was observed in 30% of that Homoeopathic drug.The mitotic index significantly decrease with increasing concentration of heeng (Table -1).So that observations clearly indicated that heeng was observed to be inhibit the cells to be divided.The no of dividing cells treated were found less than the no of dividing cells found in control or untreated cells with the drug.
The mean percentage of sticky chromosomes was increased with increase in conc.& duration.The mean percentage was increased from 16.02-16.00(Table -1) with their conc.
The Ferula treatment inactivates the spindle, resulting in the scattering of chromosome (Plate-2, Fig - 3) associated in to there are four groups due to more than one spindle at metaphase.The breaking or fragmentation in chromosomes were also found in many slides.Fragments of chromosomes observed from 4.9 to 5.55 (Table -1) in Vicia ( Plate-2, Fig - 5).
Lagging chromosomes were also observed in some slides in higher percentage in Vicia   In present investigation sticky chromosome were the most prominent abnormality found in prophase, metaphase & anaphase also by the effect of heeng.It was also reported by Chidambaram et al (2009).
The sticky chromosomes may be due to the diverse correlation in the hetero spaceless chromatin & euchromatin contents.Golden et al (1987) reported that sticky chromosome may be resulted from defective functioning of one or two types of specific non-histone proteins.Stickiness may result from chromatin fibers sticking to each other or breaking or disturbance in nucleic acid metabolism (Darlington 1942).Stickiness of chromosomes may be highly toxic & lead to cell death.
Other significant abnormality was partial or entire inactivation of spindle leading to scattering of chromosome restitution of nucleus & multi polar spindle.The movement chromosome is adversely affected by inactivation & inhibition of spindle for motion due to inhibition ATP synthesis (Frey Wyssling 1938).Heeng is capable of affecting ATP & sugar synthesis by creating anoxia condition.
Torkoglu et al 2007 also reported the induction of laggard chromosomes.Previously Barthelmess (1977) reported that laggards may be attributed to the adhesion of the centromere of a prometaphase chromosome towards metaphasic plate (Dixit and Sarbhoy 1993).
These laggards may be form micronuclei.Micronuclei are the result of mutation.Induction micronuclei support the occurrence of chromatid breaks .

ConCluSion
The present cytogenetical studies revealed that the action of heeng as Hemoeopathic drug is cytotoxic & genotoxic which increase with the increase in conc. of drug & duration of treatment is suggested that the dose & duration should be tested for its various mutagenic & genotoxic properties in different eukaryotic system viz.animals and human.

table 1 .
Type and distribution of somatic chromosomal abnormalities in (%) include by different conc.and duration of Ferula asafoetida (Root-tip treatment) in Vicia Faba 2, Fig-6).The laggard was 1.11.The lagging chromosomes leads to formation of micronuclei (Table-1).The microphotographs are shown in Plate-1 and Plate -2.reSult and diSCuSSionThe present investigation has proved the chromotoxic behaviour of heeng as Homoeopathic drug.Various types of cytological & cytogenetical aberrations were observed by biological testing of heeng as Homoeopathic drug on Vicia faba plant.The mitotic index inhibit by the effect of heeng with increase in concentration & duration.Kuras  et al (2009) found alkaloids from Licaria fomentosa bark were retard or inhibit mitosis & change mitotic phase in Allium cepa.Palani & Pannerselvam (2007) tested cytogenetic effect or mitotic effect of food preservation on root tips of Allium cepa.Amato (1949, 1952) suggested that reduced MI by the chemical mutagens has resulted due to prophase poisoning and restriction of the dividing cells of prophase or interphase.Chandra et.al. (1989) reported that the certain Homoeopathic drugs are also pressive due to inhibition of cell division & germination of spores in various fungi.Sadia & Vahidy (1994), Kumar and Shrivastva (2011) reported that boron as food preservative disturb the normal cell cycle & reduced the mitotic index ( Abdel-Hady and Barakat 2005, Sifa 2007).