Toxicological studies on alcoholic extracts of Loranthaceae from northwestern Argentine

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants for the treatment of a variety of health affections has been increased during the last decades. Scientific publications attribute multiple biological activities to plant extracts. However, not always the potential toxic effects of the evaluated species are taken into account. Under certain conditions, some bioactive substances show non desirable genotoxic effects. Genotoxicity is the toxicity manifested in the cell genetic material, and includes direct and indirect effects on DNA, which can derive in mutations and/or carcinogenesis. The present work studies the genotoxicity of plant extracts prepared from 2 species of the Loranthaceae family. Cytotoxicity on eucariotic cells was evaluated by the in vivo lethality test with larvae of Artemia salina.