Preliminary study of potential toxic effects of taranjebin in Syrian mice

Manna taranjebin is produced by an insect, Poophilus nebulosus, on camel's thorn plant. The manna has been traditionally used in herbal medicine and recent studies have studied/confirmed some of its therapeutic effects. In this study, some potential toxic effects of taranjebin were studied. In the first experiment, 4 groups of 6 mice (25.60.40g) received different doses of taranjebin (0.6-4.8g/kg/d) orally. The control group (n=6) received similar volumes (10ml/kg) of normal saline. In the second experiment, different groups of mice (n=5, 25.6±0.45g) were injected similar doses of taranjebin or placebo intraperitoneally. In both studies, the mice were watched for clinical sings during 10 days of experiments. Weight gains were measured in both experiments, and the mice in the second experiment were blood sampled for assessment of serum urea, creatinine, total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). No significant differences, regarding weight gain or the studied serum parameters, were observed between the control groups and those receiving taranjebin. It is concluded that even in high doses, taranjebin does not exert detectable toxic effects in the studied variables.