GENOTOXICITY STUDY OF BOJUNGCHISUP-TANG, AN ORIENTAL HERBAL DECOTION IN-VITRO CHROMOSOME ABERRATION ASSAY IN CHINESE-HAMSTER LUNG-CELLS ANDIN-VIVO SUPRAVITAL-STAINING MICRONUCLEUS ASSAY WITH MOUSE PERIPHERAL RETICULOCYTES

The toxicity evaluation of oriental herbal drugs is of great concern a t present. Bojungchisuptang (BCST, in Korean), a decocted medicine of oriental herbal mixture, is now well used in clinic at oriental hospit als for the treatment of edema of several diseases in practice. Howeve r, the toxicity of the oriental herbal decocted medicines such as gene tic toxicity is not well defined until now. In this respect, to clarif y the genetic toxicity of BCST, in vitro chromosome aberration assay w ith Chinese hamster lung (CHL) fibroblasts and in vivo supravital micr onucleus assay with mouse peripheral reticulocytes were performed in t his study. In the chromosome aberration assay, we used 5,000 mu g/ml B CST as maximum concentration because no remarkable cytotoxicity in CHL cells was observed both in the presence and absence of S-9 metabolic activation system. No statistical significant differences of chromosom e aberrations were observed in CHL cells treated with 5,000, 2,500 and 1,250 mu g/ml BCST for 6 hour both in the presence and absence of S-9 metabolic activation. However, Very weak positive result (6.5 similar to 8.0% aberration) of BCST was obtained in the absence of S-9 metabo lic activation system at 5,000 mu g/ml BCST when treated for 24 hour, i.e. 1.5 normal cell cycle time. And also, in vivo clastogenicity of B CST was studied by acridine orange-supravital staining micronucleus as say using mouse peripheral reticulocytes. We used 2,000 mg/kg as the h ighest oral dose in this micronucleus assay because no acute oral toxi city of BCST was observed in mice. The optimum induction time of micro nucleated reticulocytes (MNRETs) was determined as 36 hours after oral administration of 2,000 mg/kg BCST. No significant differences of MNR ETs between control and BCST treatment groups were observed in vivo mi cronucleus assay. From these results, BCST revealed very weak positive result in chromosome aberration assay in vitro with CHL cells and no clastogenicity in micronucleus assay in vivo.