Mutagenicity of the ten Philippine medicinal plants using Ames Test and Mitotic Recombination Assay

Abstract

Testing for a substance’s mutagenicity or ability to cause heritable DNA damage is one of the crucial tests needed in the production of commercially available pharmaceutical drugs. The sources of new drugs and active ingredients of medicines are mostly derived from natural products especially plant extracts. This study investigated mutagenicity of the methanolic extracts of akapulko (Cassia alata), ampalaya (Momordica charantia), bawang (Allium sativum), bayabas (Psidium guajava), lagundi (Vitex negundo), niyog-niyogan (Quisqualis indica L.), sambong (Blumea balsamifera), tsaang gubat (Carmona retusa), ulasimang bato/pansit-pansitan (Peperomia pellucida), and Yerba Buena (Clinopodium douglasii). The Ames test and Mitotic Recombination Assay were used to detect possible direct mutagens and promutagens, respectively. Results show that only M. charantia has direct mutagenic properties against TA100 Salmonella typhimurium at 10, 100, and 1000 µg/mL. Within a eukaryotic D7 Saccharomyces cerevisiae with a metabolic activation system, none of the tested plants were observed to be mutagenic. The results suggest that the metabolic system in eukaryotes possibly deactivated the direct mutagens detected in M. charantia. Therefore, all plants might still be safe for human consumption as pharmacological drugs. Future studies may include ascertaining the metabolic inactivation of mutagens in M. charantia and using the other strains in Ames test.