Genotoxicity and 28-day repeated dose oral toxicity study of garlic essential oil in mice

Yu-En Lin; Meng-Hsuan Lin; Ti-Yen Yeh; Yi-Syuan Lai; Kuan-Hung Lu; Huai-Syuan Huang; Fu-Chuo Peng; Shing-Hwa Liu; Lee-Yan Sheen

doi:10.1016/j.jtcme.2022.05.001

Genotoxicity and 28-day repeated dose oral toxicity study of garlic essential oil in mice

J Tradit Complement Med. 2022 May 8;12(6):536-544. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2022.05.001. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Yu-En Lin¹, Meng-Hsuan Lin¹, Ti-Yen Yeh², Yi-Syuan Lai³, Kuan-Hung Lu^{4

5}, Huai-Syuan Huang¹, Fu-Chuo Peng², Shing-Hwa Liu^{2

6

7}, Lee-Yan Sheen¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Food Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Institute of Toxicology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Department of Hotel Management and Culinary Creativity, Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
⁴ Institute of Food Safety and Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Institute of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background and aim: Garlic essential oil (GEO) isolated from Garlic (Allium sativum L.) exerts biological activities in disease prevention, particularly in metabolic and liver diseases, and is used for a dietary therapy for centuries. However, due to the side effects associated with the excessive consumption of GEO, there is a need to evaluate the safety of the GEO.

Experimental procedure: Ames test using five Salmonella typhimurium strains (TA98, TA100, TA102, TA1535, and TA1537) and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-K1) cells with or without metabolic activation (S9 system), and mammalian erythrocyte micronucleus test were used to assess the genotoxicity and clastogenic effects of GEO. A repeated dose of GEO (15, 25, and 50 mg/kg body weight, p.o.) were administrated to ICR mice for 28 days to ascertain the subacute toxicity of GEO.

Results and conclusions: The results of the Ames test with or without S9 system indicated that GEO did not induce mutagenicity nor have clastogenic effects in CHO-K1 cells with or without S9 activation. Furthermore, GEO did not affect the ratio of immature to total erythrocytes or the number of micronuclei in immature erythrocytes of ICR mice after 24 and 48 h. In a 28-day oral toxicity assessment, GEO (15, 25, and 50 mg/kg body weight, p.o.)-fed ICR mice exhibited normal behaviors, mortality, body weight, daily intake, hematology, clinical biochemistry, and organ weight. GEO shows no genotoxicity, and the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for GEO is considered to be greater than 50 mg/kg bw/day orally for 28 days in mice.

Keywords: Allium sativum L.; Garlic essential oil; Genotoxicity; NOAEL; Safety evaluation; Subacute toxicity.