Incorporation of Metabolic Activation in the HPTLC-SOS-Umu-C Bioassay to Detect Low Levels of Genotoxic Chemicals in Food Contact Materials.

The safety evaluation of food contact materials requires excluding mutagenicity and genotoxicity in migrates. Testing the migrates using in vitro bioassays has been proposed to address this challenge. To be fit for that purpose, bioassays must be capable of detecting very low, safety relevant concentrations of DNA-damaging substances.

Limitations of currently available oestrogenicity bioassays for effect-based testing of whole foods as the basis for decision making.

The idea that previously unknown hazards can be readily revealed in complex mixtures such as foods is a seductive one, giving rise to the hope that data from effect-based assays of food products collected in market surveys is of suitable quality to be the basis for data-driven decision-making. To study this, we undertook a comparative study of the oestrogenicity of blinded cereal samples, both in a number of external testing laboratories and in our own facility. The results clearly showed little variance in the activities of 9 samples when using a single method, but great differences between the activities from each method.

Detection of low levels of genotoxic compounds in food contact materials using an alternative HPTLC-SOS-Umu-C assay.

Food contact materials (FCMs) are perceived as major sources of chemical food contamination, bringing signif­icant safety uncertainties into the food chain. Consequently, there has been an increasing demand to improve hazard and risk assessment of FCMs. High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) coupled to a genotoxicity bio­assay has been promoted as an alternative approach to assess food packaging migrates.