Evaluation of acute oral toxicity of lemon grass oil and citral in albino rats

Abstract

Essential oils, which are the plant derived secondary metabolites have been reported for various traditional medicinal applications. Amongst them, lemongrass oil (LGO) derived from Cymbopogon spp. as well as its major constituent citral possess a myriad of therapeutic potentials. The present study has been undertaken to study the adverse effects of LGO and citral on acute oral exposure to Sprague Dawley rats to establish the preliminary safety of these compounds prior to their efficacy evaluation against fatty liver disease. The toxicity study was conducted as per OECD guidelines No. 420. The LGO and citral were solubilized in 1% tween 80 and administered orally in a sequential manner in one animal at 2000 mg/kg (sighting study) followed by four animals (main study). The animals were then monitored for any clinical abnormalities or mortality and body weight gain during the observational period of 14- days, after which the animals were sacrificed and examined for abnormal lesions. LGO was further subjected to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis to characterize its chemical constituents, which revealed alpha and beta citral as the two major constituents. The rats treated with LGO and citral survived throughout the study period and didn’t exhibit any clinical abnormalities. Moreover, body weight gain was comparable to the vehicle treated rats and necropsy revealed no pathological alterations. Thus, the present study indicated LGO and citral as safe compounds with an LD50 greater than 2000 mg/kg and could be labelled as category 5/unclassified in hazard category of Globally harmonized system for classification of chemicals.