Food dye is a synthetic chemical that improves food color, taste, and flavor and is used as a preservative. It is considered that synthetic food dyes are toxic compounds that have several adverse effects on living organisms, including genotoxicity. The Allium cepa genotoxicity test was used to assess the genotoxicity of unprocessed red dye from a local grocery store. The Allium cepa test is a low-cost but reliable genotoxicity test in which Allium cepa roots are grown in varying concentrations of the test substance. A student t-test statistically evaluated the result of the mean root length. Our results were highly significant (p<0.01) and clearly showed that the toxicity of the red dye prompted Allium cepa root growth inhibition and that this effect was increased with a higher concentration of the dye solution. Moreover, the mitotic index (MI) decreased as concentration increased. However, the percent (%) of aberrations increased by increased concentration. At the cellular level, dividing cells could be found in different concentrations of effluents. Different kinds of chromosomal abnormalities were also observed, including vagrants, bridges, fragments, stickiness, and multiple anaphases, generating evidence that those dye effluents have genotoxic effects on eukaryotic cells. The results of this study's data demonstrated that plant bioassays might be a valuable test battery for identifying substances that may be genotoxic.
Key words: Red dye, Allium cepa, mitotic index, genotoxicity, genetic damage.
30-Jun-2023
