Genotoxicity Assessment of Gardenia Yellow using Short-term Assays

Gardenia yellow, extracted from gardenia fruit, has been widely used as a coloring agent for foods, and thus, safety of its usage is of prime importance. In the current study, short-term genotoxicity assays were conducted to evaluate the potential genotoxic effects of gardenia yellow. The gardenia yellow used was found to contain 0.057 mg/g of genipin, a known biologically active compound of the gardenia fruit extract. Ames test did not reveal any positive results. No clastogenicity was detected by a chromosomal aberration test, even on evaluation at the highest feasible concentration of gardenia yellow. Gardenia yellow was also shown to be non-genotoxic using an in vitro comet assay and a micronucleus test with L5178Y cells, although a marginal increase in DNA damage and micronuclei frequency was reported in the respective assays. Additionally, in vivo micronucleus test results clearly demonstrated that oral administration of gardenia yellow did not induce micronuclei formation in the bone marrow cells of male ICR mice. Taken together, our results indicate that gardenia yellow is not mutagenic to bacterial cells, and that it does not cause chromosomal damage in mammalian cells, either in vitro or in vivo.