Farnesene (FNS) is an acyclic sesquiterpene. It has a wide range of important biological effects such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal properties, although its cytotoxic, cytogenetic and oxidative effects have not been investigated in human blood tissue yet. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2014) 38: 253-259 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article In vitro cytotoxic, genotoxic, and oxidative effects of acyclic sesquiterpene farnesene 1 2, 3 4 Kübra ÇELİK , Başak TOĞAR *, Hasan TÜRKEZ , Numan TAŞPINAR Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Turkey 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey 3 Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Sciences, Erzurum Technical University, Erzurum, Turkey 4 Department of Medical Pharmacology, Medical Faculty, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey 1 Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: Farnesene (FNS) is an acyclic sesquiterpene. It has a wide range of important biological effects such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antifungal properties, although its cytotoxic, cytogenetic, and oxidative effects have not been investigated in human blood tissue yet. To this aim, both MTT and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assays were carried out to evaluate cell viability and cytotoxicity. Total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total oxidative stress (TOS) parameters were used to assess oxidative alterations. In addition, micronucleus and chromosomal aberration tests were used for mutagenic and genotoxic studies. The results revealed that FNS reduced cell viability at concentrations of higher than 100 µg/mL. All tested concentrations of FNS were found to be nongenotoxic. In addition, the in vitro treatments with FNS led to increases of TAC levels in cultured blood cells without changing TOS levels as compared to the control group. Our results demonstrate that FNS could be used as an antioxidant compound resource that may have applications in the food and drug industries. Key words: Farnesene, cytotoxicity, human blood, genotoxicity, oxidative status 1. Introduction Essential .
