EFFECT OF LONG TERM ADMINISTRATION OF GARDEN CRESS (LEPIDIUM SATIVUM ) ON SOME CYTOGENETIC PARAMETERS IN WHITE MICE

The adverse effect of long term administration of Cyclophosphamide (Cp) , and the revesrse effect of garden cress on some cytogenetic parameters was studied in bone marrow cells . The parameters were mitotic index (MI) , formation of micronuclei (Mn) , and chromosomal aberrations (Ch. ab.) in somatic cells, as well as in germ cells (Sperms ) . The treatments included administration of Cp for 2 months as a positive control , negative control was without any treatment . The other treatments were : feeding the animals with garden cress for a month with the normal meal (1:1) and then administration of Cp with normal meal only (R/Cp) ; the other treatment was feeding the garden cress with normal meal for 2 months and giving the animal the Cp (R+Cp) ; the third treatment was administrating the Cp for a month , then feeding the garden cress with the meal (1:1) for a month (Cp/R) . Results revealed that Cp treatment reduced the MI by 44 % of the normal value (6.84) , treatment (R/Cp) raised the index to 73.5 % of the normal value , (R+Cp) treatment raised the index to 87.9 % and Cp/R raised the index to 84.6 % of the natural value . Cp induced high number of micronuclei (18.16) compared to the negative control (1.62) , R/Cp treatment reduced the number to 6.56 , R+Cp treatment reduced the number to 6.11 , and Cp/R to 5.82 . All these values were significantly differed from the negative control (P<0.01) . Cp raised the Ch. ab. to (17) compared to the natural value (1.62) , and were differed significantly(P<0.01) .They were R/Cp (6.06) , R+Cp (4.37) and Cp/R (4.81) and these variations were conducted to the types of aberrations . Cp increased the sperm-head abnormalities to ( 21.01) compared to negative control (1.15) . All treatments reduced the number of abnormalities . R/Cp treatment reduced the number to 6.73 , R+Cp to 6.06 , Cp/R to 6.03 , all of them were higher than the negative control with statistical significance (P<0.01) , such treatments affected the types of studied abnormalities .