ANALYSIS OF GENOTOXIC AND CYTOTOXIC POTENTIAL OF CANNED FOOD PRODUCTS USING MICROBIAL BIOASSAYS

Busier lifestyles have resulted in the increased de mand for convenience food products and this trend h as persistently provided a major thrust to the growth in the packag ed and canned food sector in the world. Most packaged food are laden with food additives such as artificial sweete ners, salt, artificial flavors, synthetic fats, col oring agents and chemicals that alter the textures and techniques of preservation in food industries to increase the sh elf life of food. With the growing dependence on these packaged and foods harmful effects caused by the excessive use of these food products are often neglected. An attempt has b een made to study the genotoxic and cytotoxic potentials of commonly used canned food products. Microbial Bioassays like Salmonella mutagenicity assay /Ames assay (Prokaryotic assay) (with and without metabolic act ivation) was used to evaluate genotoxic potential a nd Saccahromyces cerevisiae Respiration Inhibition Assay (eukaryotic bioassay) were used to evaluate cytotoxic potential of canned food products. Among all the pr oducts that were tested canned Tuna fish was found to possess genotoxic potential with high number of revertants as high, and muatagenicity ratio was found to be greater than 2.