ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1666101
This article is part of the Research TopicEvaluating Toxicological Risks of Traditional Medicines in Modern HealthcareView all 11 articles
Safety Profile of Dioscorea hispida Tuber Extract: A Combined Acute Toxicity and Genotoxicity Study
Provisionally accepted
Hussin Muhammad*Nur Liana Md NasirSiti Soleha Ab dullah
Nik Aina Syazana Nik Zainuddin Nik ZainuddinElda Nurafnie Ibnu RasidMei Siu LauMohd Rahimi Ashraf Abd RahmanChin Long PooSiti Khadijah Mustapha KamalNorizah Awang- Institute for Medical Research, Ministry of Health, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Dioscorea hispida has been widely known for consumption as food due to its medicinal properties. The present study evaluated the safety of D. hispida tuber aqueous extract through single-dose toxicity and genotoxicity assessments. An acute oral toxicity study was conducted with single oral doses of 5, 50, 300, and 2000 mg/kg body weight D. hispida aqueous extract in respective groups. The bacterial reverse mutation test was performed on Salmonella typhimurium strains TA100, TA1535, TA98, TA1537, and Escherichia coli strain WP2uvrA using the pre-incubation method, both in the presence and absence of an exogenous metabolic activation system (S9). An in vitro micronucleus assay was carried out on V79B cells, a fibroblast-like cells. The cells were treated with D. hispida aqueous extract at concentrations of 1.25, 2.5, and 5 mg/ml, along with positive or negative controls (distilled water). The cells were stained with acridine orange, observed under a fluorescence microscope, and scored for micronuclei. Our findings showed the administration of D. hispida aqueous extract did not cause any adverse effects up to 2000 mg/kg body weight. Additionally, D. hispida aqueous extract did not induce mutagenicity in tested Salmonella and E. coli tester strains and did not increase revertant colonies at concentrations up to 5000 µg/plate. No significant changes were observed in the number of micronucleated cells compared to the untreated group. In conclusion, D. hispida aqueous extract is not toxic in both in vivo acute toxicity and in vitro genotoxicity studies. However, further investigations are needed for preclinical studies on repeated administration and in vivo genotoxicity assays.
Keywords: Dioscorea hispida, Genotoxicity, Micronucleus, acute toxicity, mutagenicity
Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 26 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Muhammad, Md Nasir, Ab dullah, Nik Zainuddin, Ibnu Rasid, Lau, Abd Rahman, Poo, Mustapha Kamal and Awang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hussin Muhammad, Institute for Medical Research, Ministry of Health, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.