Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Toxicity assessment of aqueous extract of Curtisia dentata (Burm.f) C.A. Sm: stem bark in male Wistar rats

Olubunmi Abosede Wintola , Anthony Jide Afolayan

Medicinal Plants and Economic Development (MPED) Research Centre, Department of Botany, University of Fort Hare, Alice, 5700, South Africa;

For correspondence:- Olubunmi Wintola Email: owintola@ufh.ac.za Tel:+27719760385

Accepted: 7 October 2017 Published: 31 January 2018

Citation: Wintola OA, Afolayan AJ. Toxicity assessment of aqueous extract of Curtisia dentata (Burm.f) C.A. Sm: stem bark in male Wistar rats. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(1):97-104 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i1.15

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the acute and sub-acute toxicity effects of aqueous stem bark extract in male Wistar rats.

Methods: For the acute toxicity study, a single dose of 5000 mg/kg body weight of the extract was orally administered to the animals by oral gavage and the rats thereafter were observed for mortality and toxicity signs for 14 days. In the sub-acute toxicity test, the graded doses (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg body weight) of the aqueous extract of CD were given to the animals once daily for 28 days. In each of the experiment, the food and water intake, body weight changes, relative organ weights, hematological, clinical biochemistry and histopathological parameters were evaluated.

Results: In both the acute and sub-acute toxicity studies, CD did not show any visible signs of toxicity. There were also no significant differences (p > 0.05) between the control and CD-treated rats for all the investigated parameters; no obvious gross pathological features in the kidney, heart and liver of all the experimental animals were observed.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that the extract is not toxic when administered at the tested doses and within the exposure period. Thus, the aqueous stem bark extract of CD may be adjudged relatively safe and pharmacologically non-toxic in Wistar rats

Keywords: Curtisia dentata, Hematopoietic, Histopathology, Toxicity