Screening for Ames mutagenicity of food flavor chemicals by (quantitative) structure-activity relationship

Masamitsu Honma; Airi Kitazawa; Toshio Kasamatsu; Kei-Ichi Sugiyama

doi:10.1186/s41021-020-00171-1

Screening for Ames mutagenicity of food flavor chemicals by (quantitative) structure-activity relationship

Genes Environ. 2020 Nov 30;42(1):32. doi: 10.1186/s41021-020-00171-1.

Authors

Masamitsu Honma¹, Airi Kitazawa², Toshio Kasamatsu², Kei-Ichi Sugiyama²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Genetics and Mutagenesis, National Institute of Health Sciences, 3-25-26 Tonomachi, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa, 210-9501, Japan. honma@nihs.go.jp.
² Division of Genetics and Mutagenesis, National Institute of Health Sciences, 3-25-26 Tonomachi, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa, 210-9501, Japan.

Abstract

Background: (Quantitative) Structure-Activity Relationship ((Q)SAR) is a promising approach to predict the potential adverse effects of chemicals based on their structure without performing toxicological studies. We evaluate the mutagenicity of food flavor chemicals by (Q) SAR tools, identify potentially mutagenic chemicals, and verify their mutagenicity by actual Ames test.

Results: The Ames mutagenicity of 3942 food flavor chemicals was predicted using two (Q)SAR) tools, DEREK Nexus and CASE Ultra. Three thousand five hundred seventy-five chemicals (91%) were judged to be negative in both (Q) SAR tools, and 75 chemicals (2%) were predicted to be positive in both (Q) SAR tools. When the Ames test was conducted on ten of these positive chemicals, nine showed positive results.

Conclusion: The (Q) SAR method can be used for screening the mutagenicity of food flavors.

Keywords: (quantitative) structure-activity relationship ((Q)SAR); Ames test; Food flavors; Mutagenicity.