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DOI: 10.1055/a-1628-8132
Medicinal Plants for the Treatment of Mental Diseases in Pregnancy: An In Vitro Safety Assessment
Supported by: Swiss National Science Foundation Sinergia CRSII5_177260
Abstract
Pregnancy is a critical period for medical care, during which the well-being of woman and fetus must be considered. This is particularly relevant in managing non-psychotic mental disorders since treatment with central nervous system-active drugs and untreated NMDs may have negative effects. Some well-known herbal preparations (phytopharmaceuticals), including St. Johnʼs wort, California poppy, valerian, lavender, and hops, possess antidepressant, sedative, anxiolytic, or antidepressant properties and could be used to treat mental diseases such as depression, restlessness, and anxiety in pregnancy. Our goal was to assess their safety in vitro, focusing on cytotoxicity, induction of apoptosis, genotoxicity, and effects on metabolic properties and differentiation in cells widely used as a placental cell model (BeWo b30 placenta choriocarcinoma cells). The lavender essential oil was inconspicuous in all experiments and showed no detrimental effects. At low-to-high concentrations, no extract markedly affected the chosen safety parameters. At an artificially high concentration of 100 µg/mL, extracts from St. Johnʼs wort, California poppy, valerian, and hops had minimal cytotoxic effects. None of the extracts resulted in genotoxic effects or altered glucose consumption or lactate production, nor did they induce or inhibit BeWo b30 cell differentiation. This study suggests that all tested preparations from St. Johnʼs wort, California poppy, valerian, lavender, and hops, in concentrations up to 30 µg/mL, do not possess any cytotoxic or genotoxic potential and do not compromise placental cell viability, metabolic activity, and differentiation. Empirical and clinical studies during pregnancy are needed to support these in vitro data.
Key words
non-psychotic mental disorders - pregnancy - BeWo cell line - toxicity - Hypericum perforatum - Hypericaceae - Eschscholzia californica - Papaveraceae - Valeriana officinalis - Caprifoliaceae - Lavandula angustifolia - Lamiaceae - Humulus lupulus - Cannabaceae* These authors contributed equally to the work and should be considered as joint first authors.
** These authors contributed equally to the work and should be considered as joint last authors.
Supporting Information
- Supporting Information
HPLC-UV-MS chromatograms of EtOH extracts of V. officinalis, H. lupulus, E. californica, H. perforatum; HPLC-UV chromatograms of H. perforatum extract; GC-MS chromatogram of L. angustifolia essential oil; all data obtained with diazepam and citalopram; and in vitro cytotoxicity of different concentrations of DMSO on the BeWo b30 cells are available as Supporting Information.
Publication History
Received: 10 June 2021
Accepted after revision: 31 August 2021
Article published online:
08 October 2021
© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commecial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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