Investigations of genotoxic potential of levamisole hydrochloride in bone marrow cells of Wistar rats

An experiment was performed under in vivo conditions on bone marrow cells of Wistar rats. The following doses of levamisole hydrochloride were tested: a therapeutic dose of 2.2 mg/kg bm, a dose of 4.4 mg/kg bm, LD50 -25% mg/kg bm, and LD50 -75% mg/kg bm. We followed the effect of levamisole hydrochloride on kinetics of the cell cycle and the appearance of structural and numeric changes in chromosomes in bone marrow cells. The therapeutic dose of levamisole of 2.2 mg/kg bm exhibited a capability to increase mitotic activity in the observed cells, thus confirming knowledge of the immunostimulative effect of this dose of the medicine under in vivo conditions. The other tested doses of levamisole in this experiment, observed in comparison with the control group, had an opposite effect, namely, they caused a reduction in the mitotic activity of bone marrow cells. All the examined doses in vivo exhibited the ability to induce numeric (aneuploid and polyploid) and structural (lesions, breaks and insertions) chromosomal aberrations. It can be concluded on the grounds of these findings that the examined doses have a genotoxic effect.