Glyphosate, Alachor and Maleic Hydrazide have Genotoxic Effect on Trigonella foenum-graecum L. Sazada Siddiqui • Mukesh K. Meghvansi • Shoukat Saeed Khan Received: 16 November 2011 / Accepted: 17 February 2012 / Published online: 4 March 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract In the present study effects of herbicides gly- phosate (GP), alachlor (AL) and maleic hydrazide (MH) is studied on mitotic cells of Trigonella foenum-graecum L. Seeds of T. foenum-graecum L. treated with a series of concentrations ranging from 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5% for 1, 2 and 6 h and their effect on mitotic index and chromosomal aberrations was studied. The results indicate that these herbicides reduced mitotic index in dose- dependent manner. In addition, increase in the percentage of abnormal mitotic plates was observed in herbicide treated groups which was both concentration and time dependent. Commonly observed abnormalities were c-mitosis, laggards, bridges, stickiness, c-anaphase, preco- cious separation, un-equal distribution and fragments. The result of the present investigation indicates that commonly used herbicides GP, AL and MH have significant genotoxic effect on T. foenum-graecum plant. Keywords Genotoxicity Á Herbicides Á Mitotic index Á Chromosomal Abnormalities Á Trigonella foenum-graecum L Pesticides, which include herbicides, insecticides and fun- gicides, are used extensively to improve crop yield. More than 2.5 million tons of pesticides are applied every year to agricultural crops worldwide (Van der Werf 1996). Many reports have shown the genotoxic effect of several com- monly used pesticides (Garrett et al. 1986; Sinha 1989) mainly through their action on crucial biomolecules such as DNA (Crosby 1982). Since many pesticides do not undergo quick physio-chemical and biological degradation due to their high stability, they can cause serious threat not only to animal kingdom but also to plant kingdom. Glyphosate, which is probably the world’s most com- monly used pesticide, is an organophosphorus herbicide, containing glyphosate glycine as its active ingredient. Its mutagenic action on plants has been reported by an earlier study (Rank et al. 1993). Alachlor (AL) is an organo- chlorine (belonging to the a-halaoacetanilide series) com- monly used for control of annual grasses and broad leaf weeds in cultivation of brassicas, soybeans, peanuts, cot- ton, sugarcane and corn (Garrett et al. 1986; Hackett et al. 2005; Kiely et al. 2004). Maleic hydrazide (MH) is a pyridazine which inhibits the synthesis of nucleic acid and proteins (De Marco et al. 1992). Mutagenic action of GP, AL and MH has been reported earlier (Rank et al. 1993; Swietlinska and Zuk 1978; Siddiqui et al. 2008). In the present investigation, we have compared the genotoxicity of these three herbicides on a common self-pollinated multipurpose cash crop of India, Trigonella foenum-grae- cum, commonly known as methi in India. Materials and Methods Healthy seeds of T. foenum-graecum were obtained from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), S. Siddiqui Á S. S. Khan Department of Botany, Saifia Sciences Postgraduate College, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India S. Siddiqui (&) Biological Sciences Department, King Khalid University, Al-Samer, Abha 3340, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia e-mail: guddank@rediffmail.com; kalasaz@yahoo.co.in M. K. Meghvansi Defence Research and Development Organization, Government of India, Ministry of Defence, Tezpur, Assam, India 123 Bull Environ Contam Toxicol (2012) 88:659–665 DOI 10.1007/s00128-012-0570-6