Reproductive Toxicity Study Of Nano Iron Oxide Red For Food On Female Mice

Objective: Nanotechnology and nanomaterials have been widely used in many fields such as medicine,agriculture,industry and food,and provide better prospects for the development of these fields.Among them,in the food field,nanomaterials are widely used as colorants,flavoring agents,antioxidants and so on.These nanomaterials bring new opportunities and challenges to the development of the food industry.People are paying more and more attention to the safety of nanomaterials for food,and they have done extensive toxicity studies.But these studies are not thorough and comprehensive,especially the reproductive toxicity of nanomaterials.Therefore,in order to explore the safety of food nanomaterials more comprehensively,we have conducted in-depth research on the reproductive toxicity of food nanomaterials.In comparison,the toxicological research of iron oxide red for food is not as extensive as other commonly used nanomaterials for food,so in this article we choose iron oxide red for food for toxicological evaluation.Methods: First,we used transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering technology to characterize the iron oxide red for food we used,and then ICR female mice were gavaged with iron oxide red for food.After nine weeks,general toxicity,embryo-fetal toxicity,and perinatal toxicity to mice were assessed.Then,the F1 generation mice were also gavaged with iron oxide red for food for nine weeks to evaluate embryo-fetal toxicity.Results: The results show that the material used has a rod-like structure,which is easy to aggregate,and the diameter of the rod-like structure is about 100 nm.Longterm gavage caused damage to the gastrointestinal tract of the F0 generation mice,and the uterine weight and uterine horns of F0 generation mice treated with high doses were increased,but it did not cause significant damage to other tissues and organs.Before F0 generation mice became pregnant,long-term gavage might affect the estrus cycle,which is manifested as the preestrus increase of the middle-dose and high-dose mice.But after pregnancy it did not affect the general development of fetal mice,nor did it affect the growth and development of F1 generation mice.After long-term gavage of F1 mice,the pregnancy rate of mice in the control group was 100%,and the pregnancy rate of mice in the middle-dose group was 60%,which was lower than that of the control group.But after F1 generation mice became pregnant,it did not have a significant impact on the development of fetal mice.Conclusion: After long-term gavage of iron oxide red for food in mice,it affect the uterus and estrus cycle of F0 generation mice in the medium-dose and high-dose groups before pregnancy,and it also affect the pregnancy rate of F1 generation mice.However,after pregnancy,it had no effect on the development of the fetal mice and offspring.