Genotoxic effect of alkaloids.

Because of the increased use of alkaloids in general medical practice in recent years, it is of interest to determine genotoxic, mutagenic and recombinogenic response to different groups of alkaloids in prokaryotic and eucaryotic organisms. Reserpine, boldine and chelerythrine did not show genotoxicity response in the SOS-Chromotest whereas skimmianine showed genotoxicity in the presence of a metabolic activation mixture. Voacristine isolated from the leaves of Ervatamia coronaria shows in vivo cytostatic and mutagenic effects in Saccharomyces cerevisiae hapioids cells. The Rauwolfia alkaloid (reserpine) was not able to induce reverse mutation and recombinational mitotic events (crossing-over and gene conversion) in yeast diploid strain XS2316.