title: Subacute toxicity assessment of carotenoids extracted from citrus peel (Nanfengmiju, Citrus reticulata Blanco) in rats.
abstract: The mixture of carotenoids extracted from citrus peel (Nanfengmiju, Citrus reticulata Blanco) was tested for subacute oral toxicity. In this study, dose levels of 0, 200, 500 and 2000 mg/kg body weight/day were administered by gavage to 10 Wistar rats/sex/group for 28 days. No statistically significant, dose-related effect on food consumption, food efficiency, body weight gain, clinical signs or ophthalmoscopic parameters was observed in any treatment group. Urinalysis, hematological, blood coagulation and serum biochemical examination as well as necropsy or histopathology showed that no observed adverse effect was found. These findings suggested that the No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level for the mixture of carotenoids extracted from citrus peel was at least 2000 mg/kg body weight/day.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, 1 Shizishan Road, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Siyi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002338:Carotenoids / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity*; D002957:Citrus / Q000737:chemistry; D005260:Female; D005638:Fruit; D008297:Male; D019055:No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D059551:Toxicity Tests, Subacute
chemical_list: D010936:Plant Extracts; D002338:Carotenoids