Potential health and environmental effects of nanoparticles need to be thoroughly assessed before their widespread commercialization. Though there are few studies on cytotoxicity of nanoparticles on mammalian and human cell lines, there are hardly any reports on genotoxic and cytotoxic behavior of nanoparticles in plant cells. This study aims to investigate cytotoxic and genotoxic impacts of silver nanoparticles using root tip cells of Allium cepa as an indicator organism. A. cepa root tip cells were treated with four different concentrations (25, 20, 75, and 100 ppm) of engineered silver nanoparticles (below 100 nm size) dispersion, to study endpoints like mitotic index, distribution of cells in mitotic phases, different types of chromosomal aberrations, disturbed metaphase, sticky chromosome, cell wall disintegration, and breaks. For each concentration five sets of microscopic observations were carried out. No chromosomal aberration was observed in the control (untreated onion root tips) and the mitotic index (MI) value was 60.3%. With increasing concentration of the nanoparticles decrease in the mitotic index was noticed (60.30% to 27.62%). The different cytological effects including the chromosomal aberrations were studied in detail for the treated cells as well as control. We infer from this study that silver nanoparticles could penetrate plant system and may impair stages of cell division causing chromatin bridge, stickiness, disturbed metaphase, multiple chromosomal breaks and cell disintegration. The findings also suggest that plants as an important component of the ecosystems need to be included when evaluating the overall toxicological impact of the nanoparticles in the environment. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.