Antigenotoxic Effect of Chamomilla recutita (L.) Rauschert Essential Oil in Mouse Spermatogonial Cells, and Determination of Its Antioxidant Capacity in Vitro

Chamomilla recutita (L.) Rauschert (Asteraceae), popularly known aschamomile, is a plant used in traditional medicine for various therapeutic purposes.Chamomile essential oil (CEO) is particularly known to inhibit the genotoxic damageproduced by mutagens in mice somatic cells. The aim of this research was to determine theinhibitory potential of CEO on the genotoxic damage produced by daunorubicin (DAU) inmice germ cells. We evaluated the effect of 5, 50, and 500 mg/kg of essential oil on therate of sister chromatid exchange (SCE) induced in spermatogonia by 10 mg/kg of themutagen. We found no genotoxicity of CEO, but detected an inhibition of SCE after thedamage induced by DAU; from the lowest to the highest dose of CEO we found aninhibition of 47.5%, 61.9%, and 93.5%, respectively. As a possible mechanism of action,the antioxidant capacity of CEO was determined using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl(DPPH) free radical scavenging method and ferric thiocyanate assays. In the first test weobserved a moderate scavenging potential of the oil; nevertheless, the second assay showedOPEN ACCESSInt. J. Mol. Sci. 2010, 113794an antioxidant capacity similar to that observed with vitamin E. In conclusion, we foundthat CEO is an efficient chemoprotective agent against the damage induced by DAU in theprecursor cells of the germinal line of mice, and that its antioxidant capacity may inducethis effect.