Mutagenicity and Immune Toxicity of Emulsion-type Sausage Cured with Plasma-treated Water.
Cold plasma has been developed to reduce microbial contamination and to improve safety of food and medical products. In addition, the technology can be used in the manufacture of sausages without addition of nitrite. To be applied in food industry commercially, the new technology should be safe and efficient. However, toxicological test of plasma-treated food is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the mutagenicity and immune toxicity of the meat products cured with plasma-treated water (PTW) as a nitrite source. Emulsion sausages were prepared with no nitrite (control), sodium nitrite (SCS), and PTW (SCP). For a mutagenicity test, the Ames test was performed with the sausage samples. For immune toxicity test, 8-wk-old female Balb/c mice were given free access to the sausages in order to evaluate the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α level. As a result, no mutagenicity was detected in the sausages by the Ames test. The serum TNF-α values were less than 10 pg/mL in mice after feeding control and treated samples for 32 d, indicating that no inflammatory response was occurred by feeding the sausages made by PTW. Therefore, the present study opens the possibility of using plasma-treated water as a nitrite source without any toxicity.
Crop Post-harvest Technol. Division, Department of Central Area Crop Science, National Institute of Crop Science, RDA, Suwon 16613, Korea.
Hyun-Joo
HJ
Kim
Department of Food Science and Technology, Kongju National University, Yesan 32439, Korea.
Nak-Yun
NY
Sung
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Hae In
HI
Yong
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Hanwool
H
Kim
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Younggap
Y
Lim
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Kwang Hyun
KH
Ko
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Cheol-Heui
CH
Yun
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Center for Food and Bioconvergence, and Research Institute of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Cheorun
C
Jo
immune toxicity; mutagenicity; nitrite; plasma; sausage