Comparative evaluation of genotoxic effects of lead and red color iron oxide in rat colon

Abstract

Lead is one of many widely used heavy metals in consumer products, such as red colour paint, even though lead has a diverse array of biologically harmful effects. Red color iron oxide pigments have emerged to reduce the risk of lead toxicity and replace leadbased red pigments. Despite of the existence of numerous studies on the chemical and physical properties of iron oxide, studies on the biological safety are required. Here, we investigated the genotoxic effect of lead exposure in colon tissue by performing an acute test and subacute test utilizing the comet assay and micronucleus assay. We observed that lead-induced genotoxicity was generally higher than iron oxide-induced genotoxicity, leading us to conclude that iron oxide has a generally lower genotoxic risk than lead. Through our results, we have verified that iron oxide is an acceptable alternative material of lead-based pigments. We hope that our study will form the basis for further research on the safety evaluation of other substitutions of heavy metal based materials. © 2016, Korean Society of Environmental Risk Assessment and Health Science and Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.