EVALUTION OF THE MUTAGENIC EFFECT OF CIPROFLOXACIN IN THE BONE MARROW CELLS OF MICE

Ciprofloxacin (Cifran) is a 4-quinolone antibiotic commonly prescribed in the bacterial infections of respiratory tract, ENT, genitourinary tract and other severe systemic infections. The possible mutagenic effect of it was investigated through bone marrow metaphase chromosome analyses of mice.

Four different doses of the drug viz. 37.5, 75.0; 150.0 and 300.0 mg/kg body weight were used. 37.5 mg/kg dose corresponds to human therapeutic dose. The drug was administered orally in 0.2ml quantity dissolved in distilled water as a single dose. The animals were harvested at 24hr interval to study the dose yield effect of the drug. Animals treated with 150.0 mg/kg dose were sacrificed at 24, 48,72 and 96 hr time intervais to study the time yield effect of the drug. Adequate number of distilled water negative and cyclophosphamide treated positive control animals were maintained. Bone marrow slides were made following the standard colchicine-hypotonic-acetic methanol technique of Tijo and Whang (1962).

Different types of chromosomal aberrations like gaps, breaks, rings, exchanges, stickiness, pulverization, fragmentation etc., were scored. Among them gaps were at the highest frequency. Cifran induced significant frequencies of total anomalies only at the highest dose of 300 mg/kg body weight. There was time dependent decrease in the aberrations in both cifran and cyclophosphamide treated mice. A dose dependent decrease in the mitotic index value was observed in both ciprofloxacin and cyclophosphamide treated mice although not significant statistically. The present study revealed the non-mutagenecity of ciprofloxacin at human therapeutic dose.