da Silva C J, Montaldi A P, Dos Santos J E, Takahashi C S
Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Goiás, City of Goiás, Goiás, Brazil Department of Genetics, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo University, São Paulo, Brazil
Department of Genetics, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo University, São Paulo, Brazil.
Hum Exp Toxicol. 2015 Mar;34(3):300-7. doi: 10.1177/0960327114542884. Epub 2014 Jul 8.
Diethylpropion has been available in the market for treating obesity for over 50 years. Refined studies are lacking to fully elucidate its action spectrum. The aim of our study was to evaluate possible toxic effects of anorectic diethylpropion in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Comet assay (detects breaks in the DNA strand), micronucleus test (detects clastogenic/aneugenic damage), and cell survival test (detects cytotoxic damage) were used to evaluate the toxic effects. In comet assay, we found that the damage scores with diethylpropion treatments at the concentrations of 20 and 40 μg/mL were more significant ( p < 0.05) than that of the negative control. When assessing the possible aneugenic and/or clastogenic damage caused by the drug in CHO cells, we found no difference ( p > 0.05) in the values of micronucleated cells when comparing different diethylpropion treatments and the negative control. Regarding the cell viability, for all the diethylpropion concentrations tested, higher values ( p < 0.05) of apoptosis were found compared with those of the negative control. In relation to the number of necrotic cells, no difference ( p > 0.05) was noted between the means of the three concentrations of diethylpropion evaluated and the negative control. In the experimental conditions, we conclude that diethylpropion has weak genotoxic and cytotoxic activities.
