Modulating effect of a hydroxychalcone and a novel coumarin–chalcone hybrid against mitomycin-induced genotoxicity in somatic cells of <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>

Abstract

Chalcones are aromatic compounds found in plants or obtained by synthetic methods. These compounds and their derivatives have been proven to be responsible for a variety of pharmacological properties, including anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities. A second interesting class of compound are coumarins which comprises a large class of molecules derived from phenolic compounds found mainly in plants, exhibiting multiple biological activities such as antioxidant and anti-tumoral properties. Due to the relevance of these compounds, this study aimed to investigate the genotoxic/antigenotoxic effects of the chalcone (E)-1-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-3-(4-methylphenyl)-prop-2-en-1-one (2HMC) and the coumarin-chalcone hybrid [7-methoxy-3-(<i>E</i>)-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)acryloyl-2<i>H</i>-cromen-2-one] (4-MET) using the somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART) in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>. To assess the mutagenic and recombinogenic activities, larvae derived from standard and high bioactivation crosses were treated with different concentrations of 2HMC (10, 50, 100 and 400 µg/mL) or 4-MET (5, 50, 100 and 400 µg/mL) for 48 h. Dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO, 0.5%) was the negative control group. The anti-recombinogenic and antimutagenic activities were assessed using larvae from both crosses co-treated with the same concentrations of 2HMC or 4-MET and mitomycin C (MMC, 0.05 mM). SMART revealed no mutagenic or recombinogenic effects since no significant increase of any category of mutant spots was observed (<i>p</i> > 0.05). However, both compounds reduced the frequency of all spots induced by MMC showing antimutagenic and anti-recombinogenic activities in <i>D. melanogaster</i> cells from both crosses. We suggest that the antimutagenic and anti-recombinogenic activities observed in our study may have been a result of the antioxidant activity of 2HMC and 4-MET.