Genotoxicity of cocoa in a series of short-term assays.
Cocoa powder was evaluated for genotoxic activity and found to be inactive in the Ames assay, the mouse lymphoma assay, cytogenetic assays measuring chromosome breakage and SCE, and a cell transformation assay using Balb/c-3T3 cells. Although pure theobromine has been shown to be active in some of these test procedures, the levels of this methylxanthine present in cocoa powder were insufficient to elicit responses in this battery of tests.
D000818:Animals; D002099:Cacao / Q000009:adverse effects*; D002460:Cell Line; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000139:chemically induced; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D007940:Leukemia L5178 / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D009152:Mutagenicity Tests; D010945:Plants, Edible; D012486:Salmonella typhimurium / Q000187:drug effects; D012854:Sister Chromatid Exchange / Q000187:drug effects