Genotoxicity of Beta-Sitosterol, Betulinic Acid, Biochanin A, and Ursolic Acid, Potential Anthelmintic Phyto-Compounds

Beta-sitosterol, betulinic acid, biochanin A and ursolic acid are known to possess anthelmintic properties. This study was undertaken to assess the genotoxic potentials of these phytocompounds in albino rats. Animals were orally administered with 1 and 10 mg/ml of the above phyto-compounds for a period of 14 days. All the animals were subjected to mitotic arrest before sacrifice and then bone marrow cells were collected from both the femurs and processed to observe the chromosomal aberrations. The results revealed that ursolic acid induced the maximum number of statistically significant abnormalities (p ≤ 0.05) followed by betulinic acid and biochanin A. Beta-sitosterol was found to be the safest of all the tested phytocompounds as far as chromosomal abnormalities in short term oral studies are concerned as it did not lead to major changes at genomic level. Although these phyto-compounds are considered potential anthelmintics, their long-term use may cause genotoxic effects to the users.