Abstract
Curcuma longa Linn. (Zingiberaceae) commonly known as turmeric has long been used for centuries as a spice and household remedy. The present study was carried out to assess the possible mutagenic potential and acute oral toxicity of polysaccharide extract of turmeric rhizome (NR-INF-02) using standard tests. The standard battery of in vitro genotoxicity tests, bacterial reverse mutation test (BRMT), chromosome aberration (CA), and micronucleus (MN) tests were employed to assess the possible mutagenic activity of NR-INF-02 (Turmacin). The results showed no mutagenic effect with NR-INF-02 up to a dose of 5000 µg/mL in BRMT. The results on CA and MN tests revealed the non clastogenic activity of NR-INF-02 in a dose range of 250.36 to 2500 µg/mL with and without metabolic activation (S9). In acute oral toxicity study, NR-INF-02 was found to be safe up to 5 g/kg body weight in Wistar rats. Overall, results indicated that polysaccharide extract of C. longa was found to be genotoxically safe and also exhibited maximum tolerable dose of more than 5 g/kg rat body weight.
Highlights
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine, which amalgamate the medicinal goods of herbs with food
analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison tests indicated that treatment of NR-INF-02 at concentrations, namely, 15.87 μg/mL, 50.14 μg/mL, 158.46 μg/mL, 500.72 μg/mL, 1582.28 μg/mL, and 5000 μg/mL, did not show any significant increase in the number of revertant colonies in both Salmonella strains like TA98 strain and TAMix strain with and without S9 when compared to vehicle control
2-NF + 4NQO, 2-AA demonstrated a significant (P < 0.05) increase in the number of revertant colonies in the absence and presence of S9 respectively (Tables 1 and 2). These results confirmed the nonmutagenic property of NR-INF-02 in TA98 strain and TAMix strain of S. typhimurium
Summary
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine, which amalgamate the medicinal goods of herbs with food. This astonishing herb has established its way into the attention in the west because of its wide range of medicinal benefits [1]. The active constituents of C. longa are the flavonoid curcumin (diferuloylmethane) and various volatile oils, including tumerone, atlantone, and zingiberene. The best researched active constituent is curcumin, which comprises 0.3–5.4 percent of raw turmeric [1]. The literature review confirmed plethora of information available on safety aspects of curcumin and essential oil fractions of C. longa [3, 6,7,8]
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