The genotoxic and teratogenic effects of maltitol in rats

The Future of the Teratogenicity Testing

The purpose of this review is to examine the importance, possible advantages and disadvantages of teratogenicity tests, and their future. For this purpose, numerous sources have been scanned in the field of teratogenicity. Although there are many methods related to teratogenic studies and very important studies have been made in this field, there are still serious deficiencies. There are advantages and disadvantages of in vitro and in vivo classical tests that have been used so far. The current status of in vivo tests is a matter of debate, especially due to the use of experimental animals. However, in vitro tests that do not perform the distribution and metabolism of chemicals also raise doubts in determination of teratogenicity. Despite the modern approaches of molecular biology and genetics and the best diagnostic techniques, the real cause of more than half of congenital diseases is still not understood. In this sense, the importance and necessity of teratogenic tests are understood once again. It is necessary to develop faster, reliable, and inexpensive techniques to replace traditional in vivo tests. It is important to disseminate harmless and reliable imaging techniques such as micro-CT. The use of European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) scientifically validated and approved in vitro tests such as embryonic stem cell test (EST), micro mass test (MM), and whole embryo culture (WEC) tests in routine screening can provide a solution in a shorter time than the classical tests. Improving these tests and developing new tests can help to solve the problem permanently.

Determination of the genotoxic effects of sweeteners, mannitol and lactitol

The changes in dietary habit around the world have led to an increased use of additives in the food. The safety of food additives has been a main focus of research for many years due to the ongoing debate on their potential effects on health. In this study, the in vitro genotoxic effects of mannitol and lactitol, polyols used as sweetener food additives, were evaluated using chromosomal aberrations (CAs) and micronucleus (MN) assays in human peripheral lymphocytes. Additionally, the effects of these sweeteners on the mitotic index (MI) and nuclear division index (NDI) were investigated. Concentrations of 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 μg/mL for mannitol and 250, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 μg/mL for lactitol were used. The results indicated that both polyols did not affect CA and MN frequency, and did not cause a significant change in NDI at all treatment concentratoins. However, mannitol (except at concentrations of 500 and 1000 μg/mL) and lactitol (except at 250 μg/mL) significantly decreased the MI compared to the control at almost all concentrations and treatment times. In conclusion, it was observed that mannitol and lactitol did not have a significant genotoxic effect at the concentrations used in human lymphocytes in vitro.

Maltitol: Analytical Determination Methods, Applications in the Food Industry, Metabolism and Health Impacts

Bulk sweetener maltitol belongs to the polyols family and there have been several dietary applications in the past few years, during which the food industry has used it in many food products: bakery and dairy products, chocolate, sweets. This review paper addresses and discusses in detail the most relevant aspects concerning the analytical methods employed to determine maltitol's food safety and industry applications, its metabolism and its impacts on human health. According to our main research outcome, we can assume that maltitol at lower doses poses little risk to humans and is a good alternative to using sucrose. However, it causes diarrhoea and foetus complications at high doses. Regarding its determination, high-performance liquid chromatography proved the primary method in various food matrices. The future role of maltitol in the food industry is likely to become more relevant as processors seek alternative sweeteners in product formulation without compromising health.

Quantitative prediction of repeat dose toxicity values using GenRA

Computational approaches have recently gained popularity in the field of read-across to automatically fill data-gaps for untested chemicals. Previously, we developed the generalized read-across (GenRA) tool, which utilizes in vitro bioactivity data in conjunction with chemical descriptor information to derive local validity domains to predict hazards observed in in vivo toxicity studies. Here, we modified GenRA to quantitatively predict point of departure (POD) values obtained from US EPA's Toxicity Reference Database (ToxRefDB) version 2.0. To evaluate GenRA predictions, we first aggregated oral Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Levels (LOAEL) for 1,014 chemicals by systemic, developmental, reproductive, and cholinesterase effects. The mean LOAEL values for each chemical were converted to log molar equivalents. Applying GenRA to all chemicals with a minimum Jaccard similarity threshold of 0.05 for Morgan fingerprints and a maximum of 10 nearest neighbors predicted systemic, developmental, reproductive, and cholinesterase inhibition min aggregated LOAEL values with R² values of 0.23, 0.22, 0.14, and 0.43, respectively. However, when evaluating GenRA locally to clusters of structurally-similar chemicals (containing 2 to 362 chemicals), average R² values for systemic, developmental, reproductive, and cholinesterase LOAEL predictions improved to 0.73, 0.66, 0.60 and 0.79, respectively. Our findings highlight the complexity of the chemical-toxicity landscape and the importance of identifying local domains where GenRA can be used most effectively for predicting PODs.

Methodology of Genotoxic and Teratogenic Studies in Rats

The genotoxicity methods applied to rats are tests that can detect any damage, including changes in the number of chromosomes or in the structure of chromosomes, and nucleotide changes with structural abnormality in the DNA of animal cells. However, the method of teratogenicity is used to detect the effects of chemicals which cause congenital defects in living organisms. This study contains information about the effectiveness, reliability, ways of application, and methodology of genotoxic and teratogenic methods applied in vivo in rats.

Non-Nutritive Polyol Sweeteners Differ in Insecticidal Activity When Ingested by Adult Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

Previous work showed the non-nutritive polyol sweetener Erythritol was toxic when ingested by Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen, 1930). This study assessed whether insect toxicity is a general property of polyols. Among tested compounds, toxicity was highest for erythritol. Adult fruit flies (D. melanogaster) fed erythritol had reduced longevity relative to controls. Other polyols did not reduce longevity; the only exception was a weaker but significant reduction of female (but not male) longevity when flies were fed D-mannitol. We conclude at least some non-nutritive polyols are not toxic to adult D. melanogaster when ingested for 17 days. The longer time course (relative to erythritol) and female specificity of D-mannitol mortality suggests different mechanisms for D-mannitol and erythritol toxicity to D. melanogaster.