Potential cytotoxic and mutagenic effect of and .

The and have a long history of being used traditionally for treatment of various types of disorders. Most of the uses have been without any scientific evidence and toxicological assessment. We evaluated the mutagenic and cytotoxic capabilities of various parts of , and . Ames mutagenicity assay determined the mutagenicity activity against TA 98 and TA 100 bacterial strains of without metabolic activator S9 system. The number of mutant colonies in negative control was considered as limit to determine the mutagenicity effects of every extract. Brine shrimps lethality bioassay was used to determine the cytotoxic capabilities of the selected plants. The and did not showed any mutagenic activity both for frameshift mutation (TA98) and base-pair substitution (TA100) without S9 mixture. The crude methanolic extract of stem showed moderate cytotoxicity (53.33%) at 1000 μg/ml with LD value 599.634 The fruit showed a toxicity of 60% at 1000 μg/ml with LD value 367.730. The (whole plant) showed lethality of 63.3% at 1000 μg/ml, with LD 204.833. The absence of any mutagenic activity of crude extract of the tested plants in both bacteria strains, TA 98 and TA 100 without the S9 mix confirms the safety of these plants to the consumers.