Effects of rutin in Myristica fragrans Houtt. against cyclophosphamide-induced genotoxicity in sperm cells, on liver and kidney tissues, in Swiss albino mice

Abstract

Akeem Akinboro*, Kamaruzaman Mohammad, Zaini Asmawi

Scientific investigations on phytochemicals are done to reveal the safety or/and pharmacological potency of medicinal plant extracts. In this study, an aqueous fraction of Myristica fragrans (AFMF) was administered into Swiss albino male mice for genotoxic and antigenotoxic evaluations following the sperm morphology assay. Male mice were orally administered with AFMF alone for genotoxicity test, while antigenotoxicity involved the administration of cyclophosphamide (CP) at 50 mg/kg 5 minutes before oral administration of AFMF at 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 mg/kg. Distilled water and CP were the negative and positive controls, respectively. Histopathology of the liver and kidney of mice administered with AFMF was determined. Elucidation and quantification of phytochemical in AFMF were carried out using the ultra-performance liquid chromatography separation technique. The percentage of abnormal sperm induced by AFMF ranged between 7.25% and 13.75% at 500 and 1,000 mg/kg, respectively. Suppression of the genotoxic effect of CP was 61.75% and 38.99% at 500 and 2,000 mg/kg, respectively. AFMF caused acute and chronic inflammations in the liver tissue, whereas there was no adverse effect on the kidney tissue of the mice. Rutin was detected at 12 mg per gram of AFMF. These results suggest that rutin in AFMF was not significantly toxic to the kidney and liver cells, as well as to the chromosomes in the sperm cells of Swiss albino mice. However, it showed a significant antigenotoxic activity in the Swiss albino male mice.