Avaliação da toxicidade aguda, potencial genotóxico, mutagênico e antimutagênico do extrato dos frutos da Elaeocarpus serratus

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants has been encouraged by the World Health Organization (WHO), but popular knowledge is not sufficient to validate the safety of consumption of a plant. Toxicity and genotoxicity studies are necessary to evaluate possible adverse effects, ensuring safety for the use of the medicinal plant. Elaeocarpus serratus (Ceylon olive), is a common species from India, and its fruits have large quantities of minerals, fibers and bioactive compounds with various applications. Despite the properties of the fruit, there are no records in Brazil of studies validating its safe use. The aim of the research was to evaluate the acute toxicity, genotoxic, mutagenic and antimutagenic potential of the extract of Elaeocarpus serratus fruits. For the acute toxicity test, ten Wistar rats (n=5) were treated orally with a single dose of 2000mg/kg weight of the aqueous extract, being observed and evaluated according to hypocratic screening for 14 days. On the 15th day the animals were submitted to euthanasia and vital organs were collected for macroscopic analysis. For the genotoxicity tests 60 rats of both sexes (n=10; five of each sex) were treated with doses of 125, 250, 500 and 1000mg/kg of the extract. The genotoxic potential was evaluated according to the micronucleus test and the comet assay. For the mutagenicity and antimutagenicity assays, the somatic mutation and recombination detection test (SMART) was applied on Drosophila melanogaster wings, using standard crossings (ST) and high bioactivation (HB) and the extract was evaluated at doses of 1.25, 2.5 and 5mg/mL. The same doses were associated with doxorubicin (0.125mg/mL) for the antimutagenicity test. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA, Tukey with p<0.05 and Frei and Wrügler for the SMART test. Elaeocarpus serratus fruit extract is non-toxic at 2000mg/kg dose and does not present genotoxic effects and shows antimutagenic potential when associated with doxorubicin.