Ten species of herbae, which have been used to treat cancers in Chinese medicine, were tested to investigate their mutagenieity or antimutagenicity in S. typhimurium TA97, TA98, TA100, TA1S35, and TA1538. Scolopendra centipede was weakly active in rev...
Ten species of herbae, which have been used to treat cancers in Chinese medicine, were tested to investigate their mutagenieity or antimutagenicity in S. typhimurium TA97, TA98, TA100, TA1S35, and TA1538. Scolopendra centipede was weakly active in reversion of the frameshift mutation in S. typhimurium TA97 strain and the base-pair substitution in TA100 and TA1535 strains. Other herbae such as Coix lachryma, Dianthus superbus, Tricanthoshse kirilowii, Eupatorium formo- sanum, Lithospermum erythrorliizon, Arisaema japonicum, Curcuma aedoaria, Helicteres angustifolia, and Euonymus sieboldianus did not show any of the mutagenic potential, regardless of the metabolic activation with rat hepatic microsomal fraction. Dianthus superbus, Eupatorium formosanum, and Euonymus sieboMianus exhibited suppressive activities on microbial mutagenesis of N-methyl-N-nitrosoguanidine, a basepair substitution mutagen, in TA1535 and TA10G tester strains. The antimutagenic activities of Dianthus superbus and Euonymus sie- boldianus appeared to be dose-dependant.