Abstract
Assessment of genotoxins-induced DNA damage and mutations at molecular level is important in ecogenotoxicology. Treatment with Peganum harmala crude extract can result in cytotoxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic effects. Mutagenesis is indicative of genetic instability and can be assayed using microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs). The application of SSR marker analysis using capillary electrophoresis (CE) apparatus showed differences in SSR profiles within the extract as well as between the two extracts. All the 12 SSR primer pairs used produced amplification products which showed 100% polymorphism. The total number of scoreable loci obtained with the 12 used primers were 112 alleles. Of the 112 alleles detected 12 alleles (10.7 %) were considered as zero alleles. Three alleles produced by various primers were detected at locus VfG_22 to 15 at locus VfG_693 and VfG_873, with an average of 9.3 bands/SSR. The discrimination power of each SSR locus was estimated by the PIC, which ranged from 0.47 for locus VfG_22 to 0.88 for locus VfG_693 with a mean of 0.70. About 83.3% of the 18 alleles observed in untreated samples using the 12 primers disappeared from almost all the treatments with water and ethanol extracts. Statistical analysis of morphometric traits showed significant differences between the two extracts in all studied traits except the percentage of germination and root dry weight which were non significant. However, on the other hand significant differences were observed between treatments and the control for all the traits studied.