Cytogenotoxicity Investigation on Three Commonly Sold Antimalarial Herbal Recipes in Southwest Nigeria Using Root Mitosis Allium cepa and Mouse Bone Marrow Micronucleus Assays

Malaria remains a major public health concern in Nigeria and some other African countries due to the high cost of its treatment with synthetic/orthodox medicines that are even resisted by Plasmodium species. Therefore, a significant number of people are using antimalarial herbal medicines that have not been toxicologically confirmed to be safe for the prevention and treatment of malaria. This study evaluated the toxicity of three commonly consumed antimalarial herbal recipes (AHR1, AHR2, and AHR3) formulated with different plant materials following the Allium cepa and bone marrow micronucleus assays. The AHR1, AHR2 and AHR3 inhibited root growth in A. cepa and cell division as well in the two test organisms in non-concentration-dependent manner. The antimalarial herbal recipes induced chromosomes aberrations and micro nucleated cells that were not concentration related. Phytochemicals belonging to twelve different classes were qualitatively detected in each of the three antimalarial herbal recipes. It can therefore be concluded that the investigated antimalarial herbal recipes (AHR1, AHR2 and AHR3) have weak cytotoxic, genotoxic and clastogenic effects on the cell division and chromosome morphology in A. cepa and Swiss albino mice, suggesting mild cyto-clast genotoxicity. Nevertheless, these results call for caution when consuming any one of these investigated antimalarial herbal recipes.