Antimutagenicity and anticarcinogenic effects of gel and latex extracts of Aloe vera cultivated: a comparative study in two cities, Iran

Nowadays, cancer is one of the main causes of mortality in the world and many mutagens are the cause of death in millions of patients. Due to the side effects of anticancer drugs, scientists are in search of natural drugs with fewer side effects and more therapeutic efficacy. This study aims to, firstly, investigate the antimutgenic effects of different Aloe vera gel and latex extracts on mutated Salmonella typhimurium bacterium by using Ames test and to, secondly, study the probable effects of the habitat conditions on the antimutagenic effects of the plant. After preparing different Aloe vera gel and latex extracts, the antimutagenic effects of the extracts were evaluated by Ames test. In this test, a mutated strain of S. typhimurium was grown on culture media containing a minimum of salt and glucose in the presence of a mutagen substance (NaN3). Subsequently, only those bacteria that had turned HIS+ by reverse mutation formed colonies. As different alcoholic and aqueous extracts of Aloe vera reduced reversed mutations, the difference between the means of revertant mutants per plate was calculated by one-way ANOVA using SPSS software (version 18). The ethanol extracts of latex from Karaj had a maximum (91%) and aqueous extract from Dezfoul had a minimum (42%) percentage of inhibition. Maximum percentage of inhibition was observed in the extracts of the plant cultivated in Karaj reflecting the impact of environmental conditions on the construction of antioxidant compounds in plants.