Abstract:
The root of Aegle marmelos (L.) Correa ex Roxb. has been used as essential ingredient of some traditional Thai remedies which have a property for relief fever. The fruit of A. marmelos has been used in traditional medicine and also used as a popular herbal dietary source in Thailand. In this study, the ethanolic and fractionated water extracts from the root and the fruit of A. marmelos were assessed for their safety and efficacy in in vitro model with both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The mutagenic and anti-mutagenic activities of the root and the fruit extracts were evaluated by pre-incubation method of Ames test toward Salmonella typhimurium strains TA98 and TA100 in an acidic condition (pH 3-3.5) without enzyme activating system. Most of the extracts were not directly mutagenic except the fractionated water extract from the root of A. marmelos which exhibited mutagenicity on both strains. However, all of the extracts showed mutagenic effect on both strains after they were treated with sodium nitrite (nitrosation). In addition, this study showed that only the ethanolic extracts from the root and the fruit showed inhibitory effect against mutagenicity induced by nitrite-treated 1-aminopyrene on both strains. All of the extracts were also performed the genotoxic potential in yeast-based genotoxic assay using Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain D7. It was found that the ethanolic extracts from the root and the fruit were more effective than their fractionated water extracts which significantly increased the frequency of convertants and revertants, including the increased frequency of total aberrant colonies. In the treatments of the extracts in combination with EMS, it was found that most of all doses of the extracts from the fruit exhibited significant enhancement of EMS-induced the frequency of convertants, revertants, and total aberrant colonies. On the other hand, the extracts from the root showed significant either inhibitory or enhancement effect of EMS-induced the convertants and revertants frequencies, and inhibited the frequency of total aberrant colonies. The enhancement effect of the extracts might possibly be due to a synergistic interaction between the extracts and EMS in inducing the genotoxic effect in the combined treatment.
