Fasiku Victoria, Kyagaba Doreen, Hlalele Atlehang, Adegoke Ayodeji, Erukainure Ochuko L, Sekhoacha Mamello
Department of Pharmacology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa.
Cancer Research and Molecular Biology Laboratories, Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan 200005, Nigeria.
Toxicol Sci. 2025 Apr 1;204(2):121-142. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfaf004.
Medicinal plants are products from natural sources that have found relevance in medicine for several decades. They are rich in bioactive compounds; thus, they are widely used to treat different ailments globally. Medicinal plants have provided hope for the healthcare industry as most are used to synthesize modern medicines currently used in the treatment of various diseases. However, there are still concerns with respect to the mutagenic properties of medicinal plants. Over the years, researchers have embarked on various studies aimed at investigating the mutagenicity of several medicinal plants found in different regions of the world. In this review, we discussed factors that may influence plant mutagenicity and the findings of in vitro and in vivo mutagenicity studies of several medicinal plants from across the globe. In addition, this review considers the potential health implications of mutagenic medicinal plants and safety measures that can be used to mitigate mutagenesis in medicinal plants. To achieve this, we searched for articles reporting on medicinal plants and mutagenesis on the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. Several journal articles reported on the mutagenicity of some medicinal plants; however, it was observed that the majority of the articles reported the nonmutagenicity of medicinal plants. The findings from these studies imply that medicinal plants have good prospects in treating diseases and that they are clinically relevant. However, these reports will require further validation to determine their safety for human use as limited in vivo studies were conducted and there are no clinical safety reports for any of the plants discussed in this review.
药用植物是来自天然来源的产品，几十年来在医学领域已显示出相关性。它们富含生物活性化合物，因此在全球范围内被广泛用于治疗各种疾病。药用植物为医疗保健行业带来了希望，因为大多数药用植物被用于合成目前用于治疗各种疾病的现代药物。然而，药用植物的诱变特性仍然令人担忧。多年来，研究人员开展了各种研究，旨在调查在世界不同地区发现的几种药用植物的诱变性。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了可能影响植物诱变性的因素以及来自全球的几种药用植物的体外和体内诱变性研究结果。此外，本综述考虑了诱变药用植物对健康的潜在影响以及可用于减轻药用植物诱变作用的安全措施。为实现这一目标，我们在PubMed、Scopus和Web of Science数据库中搜索了关于药用植物和诱变作用的文章。几篇期刊文章报道了一些药用植物的诱变性；然而，据观察，大多数文章报道药用植物无诱变性。这些研究结果表明，药用植物在治疗疾病方面具有良好的前景，并且在临床上具有相关性。然而，这些报告需要进一步验证，以确定它们对人类使用的安全性，因为所进行的体内研究有限，并且本综述中讨论的任何植物都没有临床安全报告。
