Genotoxic evaluation of aspirin eugenol ester using the Ames test and the mouse bone marrow micronucleus assay

Aspirin eugenol ester (AEE) is a promising drug candidate for treatment of inflammation, pain and fever and prevention of cardiovascular diseases with less side effects and it is important to characterize its genotoxicity. In this study, the genotoxicity of AEE was assessed with two standard genotoxicity assays of the Salmonella typhimurium mutagenicity assay (Ames test) and the mouse bone marrow micronucleus assay. In the Ames test, Salmonella strains TA97, TA98, TA100, TA102 and TA1535 were treated with or without the metabolic activation with a S9 fraction from Acroclor-induced rat liver. The doses of AEE were 5 mg/plate, 2.5 mg/plate, 1.25 mg/plate, 0.625 mg/plate and 0.3125 mg/plate, respectively. In the above tested strains, mutagenicity with or without the S-9 mixture was not detected. In the mammalian erythrocyte micronucleus assay, fifty mice were divided into five groups evenly and the AEE dose at 5000 mg/kg, 2500 mg/kg and 1250 mg/kg and the cyclophosphamide dose at 40 mg/kg as a positive control, the 0.5% of CMC-Na as negative control were administered. The results showed that AEE did not induce any significant increase in micronucleated erythrocytes after 24 h (p < 0.01). Our results suggested that AEE was non-genotoxic in vivo or in vitro.