The toxicity evaluation of oriental herbal drugs is of great concern at present. Bojungchisuptang (BCST, in Korean), a decocted medicine of oriental herbal mixture, is now well used in clinic at oriental hospitals for the treatment of
edema of several diseases in practice. However, the toxicity of the oriental herbal decocted medicines such as genetic toxicity is not well defined until now. In this respect, to clarify the genetic toxicity of BCST, in vitro
chromosome aberration assay with Chinese hamster lung (CHL) fibroblasts and in vivo supravital micronucleus assay with mouse peripheral reticulocytes were performed in this study. In the
chromosome aberration assay, we used 5,000 micrograms/ml BCST as maximum concentration because no remarkable cytotoxicity in CHL cells was observed both in the presence and absence of S-9 metabolic activation system. No statistical significant differences of
chromosome aberrations were observed in CHL cells treated with 5,000, 2,500 and 1,250 micrograms/ml BCST for 6 hour both in the presence and absence of S-9 metabolic activation. However, very weak positive result (6.5-8.0% aberration) of BCST was obtained in the absence of S-9 metabolic activation system at 5,000 micrograms/ml BCST when treated for 24 hour, i.e. 1.5 normal cell cycle time. And also, in vivo clastogenicity of BCST was studied by
acridine orange-supravital staining micronucleus assay using mouse peripheral reticulocytes. We used 2,000 mg/kg as the highest oral dose in this micronucleus assay because no acute oral toxicity of BCST was observed in mice. The optimum induction time of micronucleated reticulocytes (MNRETs) was determined as 36 hours after
oral administration of 2,000 mg/kg BCST. No significant differences of MNRETs between control and BCST treatment groups were observed in vivo micronucleus assay. From these results, BCST revealed very weak positive result in
chromosome aberration assay in vitro with CHL cells and no clastogenicity in micronucleus assay in vivo.