Antioxidant, mutagenic and antimutagenic activities of an aqueous extract of Limoniastrum guyonianum gall

Mutagenic potential of medicinal plants evaluated by the Ames Salmonella/microsome assay: A systematic review

The Ames test has become one of the most commonly used tests to assess the mutagenic potential of medicinal plants since they have several biological activities and thus have been used in traditional medicine and in the pharmaceutical industry as a source of raw materials. Accordingly, this review aims to report previous use of the Ames test to evaluate the mutagenic potential of medicinal plants. A database was constructed by curating literature identified by a search on the electronic databases Medline (via Pubmed), Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science from 1975 to April 2020, using the following terms: "genotoxicity tests" OR "mutagenicity tests" OR "Ames test" AND "medicinal plants." From the research, 239 articles were selected, including studies of 478 species distributed across 111 botanical families, with Fabaceae, Asteraceae and Lamiaceae being the most frequent. It was identified that 388 species were non-mutagenic. Of these, 21% (83/388) showed antimutagenic potential, most notable in the Lamiaceae family. The results also indicate that 18% (90/478) of the species were mutagenic, of which 54% were mutagenic in the presence and absence of S9. Strains TA98 and TA100 showed a sensitivity of 93% in detecting plant extracts with mutagenic potential. However, the reliability of many reviewed studies regarding the botanical extracts may be questioned due to technical issues, such as testing being performed only in the presence or absence of S9, use of maximum doses below 5 mg/plate and lack of information on the cytotoxicity of tested doses. These methodological aspects additionally demonstrated that a discussion about the doses used in research on mixtures, such as the ones assessed with botanical extracts and the most sensitive strains employed to detect the mutagenic potential, should be included in a possible update of the guidelines designed by the regulatory agencies.

Limoniastrum guyonianum aqueous gall extract induces apoptosis in colorectal cancer cells by inhibiting calpain activity

Several studies have reported that plant-derived natural products have cancer chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic properties. The aim of the present study was to determine the antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic potential of Limoniastrum guyonianum aqueous gall extract (G extract) on human colorectal cancer BE cell line and, if so, to characterize the mechanism involved. The G extract-induced growth inhibitory effect was associated with an arrest of cell cycle progression in G2/M phase as shown by the cell phase distribution. In addition, G extract promoted in a concentration-dependent manner these cells towards apoptosis as indicated by the presence of cleaved poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). In order to characterize the mechanism involved in the antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic signaling pathway activated by G extract, calpain activity and the expression of the cell cycle inhibitor p16(INK4A) were determined. The present findings indicated that G extract exhibited significant inhibitory activity against calpain and caused a marked and concentration-dependent upregulation of p16(INK4A). These effects could be ascribed to the presence of condensed tannins and polyphenols such as epicatechin and epigallocatechin gallate in G extract.