Acrylamide in selected foods and genotoxicity of their extracts.

Acrylamide is one of the most important contaminants in the environment. Acrylamide was shown to be a neurotoxicant, reproductive toxicant, and carcinogen in animals. There is consensus among international food safety groups that acrylamide in the diet should be assessed. In the present study, we surveyed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) the levels of acrylamide in 23 foods marketed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The genotoxicity of all food samples, acrylamide and glycidamide were investigated using the Salmonella mutagenicity test. Also, the DNA damaging potency was done for 16 of these foods aqueous and organic extracts beside acrylamide in the comet assay. Acrylamide levels in food ranged from non-detectable to 2200microg/kg. Neither acrylamide nor food aqueous or organic extracts showed mutagenic effects in the Salmonella strains TA98, TA100 and TA1535 in the presence or absence of the metabolic activation system (S9). Also, they did not show DNA damaging effects in the comet assay. Glycidamide showed mutagenicity with TA100 only in the presence of S9 and exhibited extensive DNA breaks in the comet assay. Leukocytes from rat fed Pringles crisps showed extensive DNA damage in comet test. This genotoxicity could not be demonstrated by Pringles in vitro. Continuous surveying of food for acrylamide is necessary to minimize human exposure.