Mutagenic Potential of Sibutramine in Allium cepa Cells

Murillo de Sousa Pinto¹, Gabriela Rodrigues de Sousa¹, Mônica de Oliveira Santos², Lilian Carla Carneiro², Hellen Karine Paes Porto³, Débora de Jesus Pires⁴ & Aroldo Vieira de Moraes Filho^5*

¹Academics of the Biomedicine Course of Faculdade Alfredo Nasser, Aparecida de Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
²Institute of Pathology and Public Health, IPTSP / UFG, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
³PhD in progress in Health Sciences by the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil
⁴State University of Goiás, Brazil
⁵Institute of Health Sciences / ICS, Faculdade Alfredo Nasser, Aparecida de Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

Aroldo Vieira de Moraes Filho, Institute of Health Sciences / ICS, Faculdade Alfredo Nasser, Aparecida de Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil.

Keywords: Sibutramine; Obesity; Mutation; Allium cepa

Abstract

For the maintenance and quality of life of living beings is essential the balance between energy gain and expenditure. However, obesity is a prevalent health problem worldwide. To combat obesity many drugs are studied, produced and sold in the worldwide. Sibutramine is a serotoninnoradrenaline reuptake inhibitor effective in the treatment of obesity. Sibutramine undergoes metabolism mainly in the liver via CYP3A4, forming two pharmacologically active metabolites and has several side effects such as irritation, migraine and increased blood pressure. Brazil is one of the countries that most produces and markets sibutramine and other drugs of this kind in the world. Our objective was to analyze the mutagenic potential of sibutramine using Allium cepa cells. The selection of the test model was based on criteria such as ease of execution and rapid reproducibility of tests. The common onion Allium cepa is a very convenient test system for estimating the harmful effects of chemicals on biological materials. Onion bulbs were treated with concentrations of 10, 15, 20, 30 and 40mg/L of the drug. Cell samples were collected and fixed for cytological analysis. The results showed an increasing increase in the relative abnormality rate (%) of the cells. In addition, we observed aberrations in the divided and undivided cells, along with cell lysis in samples of concentrations of 30 and 40mg/L of sibutramine. All experiments were carried out with suitable solutions, new and subjected to the same conditions of temperature, pH, luminosity and time, so our analyzes of mutation frequencies and cell division frequencies were expressed on average with results adequate to the standard deviation. From the data obtained during the development of the study we must insist on the anticipated need to evaluate the risk / benefit in the prescription of sibutramine, questioning the well-being and quality of life of the patient, not evaluating this parameter can submit the patient user to a severe clinical risk making the treatment more extensive and serious complications.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).