Genotoxicity Assessment of Byproducts (Degradants) Resulting from the Treatment of Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) with NanoGuard's Cold Plasma Technology UsingHepG2 Mammalian Cell Immunoblot Analysisand UMU-Chromotest

Abstract

NanoGuard Technologies Inc. has developed a proprietary High Voltage Atmospheric Cold Plasma (HVACP) treatment which degrades Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) on food, feed, and agricultural products.The technology involves ionization of atmospheric air producing ionized air that contains Reactive Gas Species (RGS). The RGS from air are capable of degrading mycotoxins and the ionized airquickly reverts to air. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genotoxicity of AFB1 before and after NanoGuard’s ionized air treatment using immunoblot analysis of histone nuclear protein(H2AX) phosphorylation, and UMU‑Chromotest (umu- or umuC test).Nanoguard’s ionized airtreated AFB1 (test) and untreated AFB1 (control) were used for this genotoxicity evaluation. The HepG2 immunoblot assays showed less induction of γ-H2AX with treated AFB1 compared to the untreated, indicating reduced genotoxicity to human Hep G2 cells. Similarly, UMU analysis with S9 of untreated AFB1 showed genotoxicityas expected, while thetreated AFB1 showed no genotoxicity.