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Molecular Microbiology Research (Online) 2013, Vol.3 No.2 9-20
ISSN 1927-5595
http://mmr.sophiapublisher.com
9
Research Report Open Access
Carcinogenic Assay of Foods Using Auxotrophic Strains of
Salmonella
typhimurium
Employing Reverse Mutation Technique
A. Lakshmi
2
, S. Ramesh
2
, K. Chairman
1
, M. Jeyamala
1
,
S. Sankar
3
,
A. Murugan
1
1. Department of Advanced Zoology and Biotechnology, Sri Paramakalyani College, Alwarkurichi, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli,
Tamilnadu, India - 627 412
2. Department Microbiology, Sri Paramakalyani College, Alwarkurichi, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India - 627 412
3. CAS in Marine Biology, Annamalai University, Parangipettai – 608502
Corresponding authors email:
journalpublish2012@gmail.com;
Authors
Molecular Microbiology Research, 2013, Vol.3, No.2 doi: 10.5376/mmr.2013.03.0002
Received: 19 Mar., 2013
Accepted: 27 Mar., 2013
Published: 26 Apr., 2013
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Ramesh et al., 2013, Carcinogenic Assay of Foods Using Auxotrophic Strains of
Salmonella typhimurium
Employing Reverse Mutation Technique, Molecular
Microbiology Research, Vol.3, No.2 9-20 (doi: 10.5376/mmr.2013.03.0002)
Abstract
World hastens the changes in food items, that facilities of the addition of colouring agents and flavouring agents. They
were not aware of the treat of dangers awaiting them in the form of food increasing with modernization in food along with the
development new diseases many desirable factors are involved in foods. Fifty five food samples were tested by the reverse mutation
test for the presence of carcinogenic chemicals. The auxotrophic mutant strain had the character of his arg+ , amp+ and Tet+. From
the result of reverse mutation assay, we informed that 48% of sample was under 2+ level, 40% of sample under 1+ level were
recorded for carcinogenic behavior while 59.2% the sample did not reflect any level. Out of 55 samples, 41.8% showed the positive
result that indicated dangerous carcinogenic chemicals in fried oil, reheated oil, halwa, jangiri etc. Even sweets had the high content
of carcinogens which were mostly preferred by kids. The extra chromosomal DNAs isolated were electrophoresed.
Keywords
Uv-mutagenic; Food samples; Tetracycline; Arginine; Amest test
1 Introduction
Food is a human necessity. Like water and air, it
should be made available for a hygienic living.
Saffron and other spices are often used to impart
yellow colour to various foods even since the ancient
civilizations. Let alone children even adults have been
attracted towards coloured foods.
Manufactures add food additives such as artificial
colouring agents, flavouring agents and sweeteners for
under mentioned reasons. Today our foods have
several chemicals that may act as a carcinogenic
chemical (Knudson, 1982). Of late our environment
has turned into containment full of potential
carcinogens (causative agents for cancer) such as
UV rays, industrial pollutants pesticides food
additives metal wastes tobacco products etc (Maron
and Ames, 1980).
Among the most common mutagens, Heterocyclic
Amines (HCAs) are known to be produced during
frying, broiling or grilling over an open flame. HCAs
are unique that they are naturally occurring (Nagao et
al., 1977; Sugimura, 1988). The pan residues that
remain after frying also have high mutagenic activity
due to recurring oxidations and avoidance of
exposure is also impractical and in that they induce
tumours in breast, colon (Sana et al., 1991) and
prostate (Shirai et al., 1997).
Non-organic foods (aspartame) an artificial sweetener
found in sweets, soft drinks has been linkaged to large
number of disease such as lupus, cancer, strokes, head
ache, nervous system infection, chronic hepatitis and
hyper sensitive (Blaylock, 1996).
Bacterial mutation assays are used in a large number
of laboratories throughout the world. Several large
scale trials are carried out to test the usefulness of
these assays in detecting potential carcinogens and
mutagens (Purchase et al., 1978; Mahon et al., 1979;
Burtschs et al., 1980; De Serres and Ashby, 1981).
Amino acid marker studies are widely applied in many