Indigenous Preparations of Bryonia laciniosa , Quercus infectoria , Putranjiva roxburghii and Mesua ferrea Induce Developmental Toxicity in C. elegans

The use of traditional medicines has gained popularity with time. Bryonia laciniosa, Quercus infectoria, Putranjiva roxburghii and Mesua ferrea are used for treating several conditions as indigenous preparations (IPs). In view of potential harms caused by such preparations used during pregnancy, the authors attempted to investigate their safety using C. elegans as a host. Forty-eight IPs were collected; based on the presence of phenols and steroids, six were considered for the toxicity study in C. elegans . Survival assay analysis was performed for fixation of the dose (at 500 μg/ml) for the further conduct of the study. Disruption in events such as egg-laying capacity and progeny production was observed to predict the toxic effects of the compounds in IPs. Survival assay results at 30 and 70 h showed that survival of the worms varied according to the exposure. The worms exposed to IP extracts H1, H4, H9, F1, F4 and F9 showed 60%, 60%, 20%, 40%, 80% and 40% mortality at 70 h, respectively, compared to the vehicle control. A profound impact on reproductive toxicity was observed upon exposure to SSDs. The egg-laying capacity reduced to 19–57 compared to 101 in controls ( P < 0.001) on Day 4. The progeny count reduced from 95 to 11–47 on Day 4 ( P < 0.001). However, no gross morphological changes were observed. The present study revealed that IPs appeared to be toxic to the host system. However, corroboration of in vivo experiments in higher mammalian models is required for in-depth toxicology analyses and strengthening our evidence.