Toxicological advances of traditional medicine in 2019

There were many researches concerning toxicology of traditional medicine (TM) and active natural products during the past 12 months. This annual toxicology review summarized target organs of TM like liver, kidney and heart. Safety medication of TM has been concerned to different kinds of people, including infants, children, pregnancy and the postnatal period. Besides rodents, zebrafish embryoes have been regarded as common models to evaluate the safety of TM. New technologies in toxicology focus on rapidly screening and identification of toxins in TM. Multispectral optoacoustic tomography imaging the precise location of TM-induced liver injury with 3D information and integrating serum exosomal microRNA and liver microRNA profiles are used to explain the mechanism of TM-induced hepatotoxicity. Taken together, study on the toxicity mechanism of other target organs, drug safety in elders, new models and methods should be paid attention to in the prevention of TM toxicology in the future.