Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) Does Not Exhibit Mutagenic Activity In Vivo
Nora Apsel1, Elisa Ruiu2, Krishna Moorthi Bhat*, 1, 2
1 Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine, Galveston,Texas 77555, USA
2 Department of Neurology, University of Cagliari, Monserato, Sardenia, Italy
Abstract
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is an important antioxidant and there is a wide spread supplementation of diets with vitamin C among the general population in the form of tablets or powder. Vitamin C is also present in multi-vitamin tablets along with Zn and other transitional metal ions. Recent reports, however, have suggested that vitamin C exhibits Vpro-oxidant properties and in vitro it can produce genotoxins. Furthermore, a combination of vitamin C and transitional metal ions had an additive effect in in vitro studies. These results raise the possibility of mutagenic toxicity for vitamin C with or without the transitional metal ions. We performed a genetic screen to test if vitamin C can cause mutations in vivo using the model organism Drosophila. We report that a combination of vitamin C and Zn had no mutagenic activity in vivo in Drosophila. Additionally, we describe a simple screen using Drosophila to test mutagenic activity of any compound.
Keywords: Drosophila, vitamin C, antioxidant, prooxidant.
Article Information
Article History:
Received Date: 22/6/2011
Revision Received Date: 21/7/2011
Acceptance Date: 21/7/2011
Electronic publication date: 25/08/2011
Collection year: 2011
© Apsel et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine,Galveston, Texas 77555, USA; Tel: 409-747-2214; Fax: 409-747-2187; E-mail: kmbhat@utmb.edu
Open Peer Review Details |
Manuscript submitted on 22-6-2011 |
Original Manuscript |
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) Does Not Exhibit Mutagenic Activity In Vivo |