Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, PR China.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2012 Dec 18;144(3):791-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2012.10.010. Epub 2012 Oct 17.
Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort. (Umbelliferae) is a plant used as medicine and food in China. The essential oil (EO) extracted from its rhizomes possesses many pharmacological activities. However, there have been no scientific reports in the modern literature on the safety of EO.
The objective of this study was to conduct a chemical composition analysis and evaluate acute toxicity and skin sensitivity of EO from rhizomes of Ligusticum chuanxiong.
The chemical composition of hydrodistilled EO was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and was evaluated in animals for acute toxicity, skin irritation and sensitization tests.
Dozens of compounds were detected and the major components of EO were ligustilide and butylidenephthalide with relative contents of 67.46 and 5.06%, respectively. The oral and intra-peritoneal lethal doses of 50% (LD(50)) in mice were 7.23 g/kg (approximately 14,606 times of clinical dose used) and 2.25 g/kg (approximately 5091 times of clinical dose used), respectively. The doses of 0.115 and 0.23 g/kg EO (approximately 232.5 and 465 times of the respective clinical doses used) revealed slight irritation effects on rabbit skin, but 1g/kg EO (approximately 2020 times of clinical dose used) had no observable effect on guinea pig skin in the skin sensitization test.
These experimental results indicate that short term application of EO is probably safe within the range of its clinical doses, but the dose should be controlled for external use due to its slight skin irritation.
川芎（伞形科）是一种在中国被用作药物和食品的植物。从其根茎中提取的精油具有许多药理活性。然而，现代文献中没有关于精油安全性的科学报道。
本研究的目的是对川芎根茎精油进行化学成分分析，并评价其急性毒性和皮肤敏感性。
采用气相色谱-质谱联用（GC-MS）对水蒸馏精油的化学成分进行分析，并在动物体内进行急性毒性、皮肤刺激和致敏试验评价。
检测到数十种化合物，精油的主要成分是藁本内酯和丁烯基苯酞，相对含量分别为 67.46%和 5.06%。小鼠口服和腹腔注射的半数致死剂量（LD50）分别为 7.23g/kg（约为临床剂量的 14606 倍）和 2.25g/kg（约为临床剂量的 5091 倍）。0.115 和 0.23g/kg 的精油（约为临床剂量的 232.5 和 465 倍）对兔皮肤有轻微刺激作用，但 1g/kg 的精油（约为临床剂量的 2020 倍）在皮肤致敏试验中对豚鼠皮肤没有明显影响。
这些实验结果表明，在临床剂量范围内，短期应用精油可能是安全的，但由于其皮肤轻微刺激，外用时应控制剂量。
