Background: Salen metal complexes are used successfully in a wide range of asymmet-ric reactions and important in the pharmaceutical and industry. On the toxicity of salen vanadium oxide (VOsalen) on embryo and cell cultures, little information is available. In the present study, the toxic and teratogenic effects of VOsalen was evaluated against chicken embryos as a animal model and liver and fibroblast cell cultures which was derived from the embryo.
Methods: The VOsalen compound was synthesized. The compound solution was inject-ed in triplicate examination, in the air sac of the eggs, at third day of incubation. Treat-ed and control eggs, on day 19 of incubation opened and embryos were weighted, then mortality rate was recorded. The liver and fibroblast cell culture were treated by this and survival fraction was recorded.
Results: The survived fraction of the embryos depends on the compound concentration. In concentration of 300μM/egg, 36/32% of the embryos survived and the Lethal dose 50% (LD50) was 226/37 μM/egg. Morphological study of the treated embryos showed retarded growth, and skeletal staining showed the deletion of caudal vertebrate. The compound was inhibited liver and fibroblast cells growth with IC50 1047/25 and 1036/82μM respectively. The cytoplasm of treated cells became dense and their interco-nnections were loosed.
Conclusion: The VOsalen compound had low toxic effects against the embryos and the cultured cells at the concentrations. Significant cytotoxic effect was not observed in the treated cells. However the proliferative cells were affected significantly in comparison with the cells which their growth was stopped. The effect of VOsalen compound against replication of liver cells were lower than fibroblast cells.