Genotoxic and Mutagenic Activity of Suvarna Bhasma

Genetic toxicity and mutagenicity of Suvarna Bhasma (SB), an Ayurvedic drug, was determined using a battery of tests. The results of In-vivo Micronucleus assay and COMET assay did not reveal any significant increase in % Micronucleus frequency(MN) in bone marrow cells of mice and DNA damage in blood lymphocytes respectively after the oral administration of SB at various concentrations (3,-30 mg/kg bw) in treated animals as compared to vehicle control in either sex. The invitro chromosome aberration (CA) assay carried out with and without metabolic activation at different concentrations of SB in human lymphocyte culture did not cause any effect on structural or numerical chromosome aberrations. Suvarna Bhasma did not induce any mutagenic activity in presence and absence of S9 fractions in Ames assay employing three strains of salmonella typhimurium TA98, TA100 and TA102.These results demonstrated that Suvarna Bhasma preparation evaluated in this study is not genotoxic and mutagenic at the concentrations tested under the experimental conditions.