Investigation of the Genotoxic, Antigenotoxic and Antioxidant Profile of Different Extracts from Equisetum arvense L

Margarita Dormousoglou; Ioanna Efthimiou; Maria Antonopoulou; Damian L Fetzer; Fabiane Hamerski; Marcos L Corazza; Maria Papadaki; Samir Santzouk; Stefanos Dailianis; Dimitris Vlastos

doi:10.3390/antiox11071393

Investigation of the Genotoxic, Antigenotoxic and Antioxidant Profile of Different Extracts from Equisetum arvense L

Antioxidants (Basel). 2022 Jul 18;11(7):1393. doi: 10.3390/antiox11071393.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Patras, Seferi 2, GR-30100 Agrinio, Greece.
² Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Anavyssos, GR-19013 Athens, Greece.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba 81531-990, Brazil.
⁴ Santzouk Samir and Co. General Partnership, PANAX, Chrissostomou Smirnis 14, GR-30100 Agios Konstantinos, Greece.
⁵ Department of Biology, University of Patras, GR-26500 Patras, Greece.

Abstract

The present study investigated the cyto-genotoxic and antigenotoxic effects of four different extracts of Equisetum arvense L. (common name: field horsetail) on human lymphocytes. Specifically, Soxhlet's prepared extracts from E. arvense L., using different solvents (S1: methanol (MeOH)-, S2: ethanol (EtOH)-, S3: water-, and S4: ethanol/water (EtOH-W)-) were analyzed for (a) their total phenolic and flavonoid content (TPC and TFC, respectively), (b) their antioxidant activity (AA), via the DPPH, FRAP and ABTS assays, and (c) their cyto-genotoxic and/or protective efficiency against the mutagenic agent mitomycin C, via the Cytokinesis Block MicroNucleus assay. All extracts showed increased TPC, TFC, and AA values in almost all cases. S1, S3 and S4 demonstrated no cytotoxic potential, whereas S2 was cytotoxic only at the highest concentrations. Genotoxicity was not observed in the tested extracts. The highest antigenotoxic activity was observed for EtOH-W (S4) extract, which was found to be rich in flavonoids, flavonoid-O-glycosides, phytosterols, phenolic and fatty acids as well as in minerals and mainly in K, Ca, Mg, Si and P, as assessed by using various mass spectrometry techniques. Those findings confirm that E. arvense L. extracts could be valuable candidates for medicinal applications and pharmaceutical products, thus alleviating the effects of more conventional drugs.

Keywords: CBMN assay; Equisetum arvense L.; Soxhlet extraction; antigenotoxicity; antioxidant activity; cyto-genotoxicity; human lymphocytes.

Grants and funding

The publication of this article has been financed by the Research Committee of the University of Patras (no funding number is provided by the Research Committee).