j. Ethnopharmacol. 2016 Feb 3;178:289-96. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2015.10.026. Epub 2015 Dec 8.
Abstract
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE:
Medicinal
plants are known to contain numerous biologically active compounds, and
although they have proven pharmacological properties, they can cause
harm, including DNA damage.
AIM OF THE STUDY:
Review
the literature to evaluate the genotoxicity risk of medicinal plants,
explore the genotoxicity assays most used and compare these to the
current legal requirements.
MATERIAL AND METHODS:
A
quantitative systematic review of the literature, using the keywords
"medicinal plants", "genotoxicity" and "mutagenicity", was undertakenQ
to identify the types of assays most used to assess genotoxicity, and to
evaluate the genotoxicity potential of medicinal plant extracts.
RESULTS:
The
database searches retrieved 2289 records, 458 of which met the
inclusion criteria. Evaluation of the selected articles showed a total
of 24 different assays used for an assessment of medicinal plant extract
genotoxicity. More than a quarter of those studies (28.4%) reported
positive results for genotoxicity.
CONCLUSIONS:
This
review demonstrates that a range of genotoxicity assay methods are used
to evaluate the genotoxicity potential of medicinal plant extracts. The
most used methods are those recommended by regulatory agencies.
However, based on the current findings, in order to conduct a thorough
study concerning the possible genotoxic effects of a medicinal plant, we
indicate that it is important always to include bacterial and mammalian
tests, with at least one in vivo assay. Also, these tests should be
capable of detecting outcomes that include mutation induction,
clastogenic and aneugenic effects, and structural chromosome
abnormalities. In addition, the considerable rate of positive results
detected in this analysis further supports the relevance of assessing
the genotoxicity potential of medicinal plants.
Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
KEYWORDS:
Genotoxicity assays; Herbal extracts; Medicinal plants; Systematic review
