Three doses (50 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg, and 150 mg/kg) were administered orally to Swiss albino mice for 48 h to study the genotoxic activity in micronucleus assay as well as any chromosomal aberration. Gramine at the given dose lacks mutagenicity as well as found to possess antimutagenic efficacy.

Human MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells were maintained in DMEM containing 10% fetal bovine serum and supplied with 1% penicillin/streptomycin. Cells were incubated at37 deg-C in a 5% CO2 atmosphere. Cells were grown to 80% confluence and aliquoted into 100 mm dishes in serum-free media. Cells were allowed to attach overnight and 5 micro-L culture media containing gramine was added. Cells were incubated with 20 µM to 1.2 nM gramine for 72 hours after which proliferation was evaluated using CellTilter-Blue reagent. Gramine inhibited the growth of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells with IC50 values of 15.3 and 10.6 micro-M respectively.