Potential dietary toxicity assessment of alum-processed jellyfish

S Lin, J Hu, R Guo, Y Lin, L Liu, B Tan, S Zeng
2016 Bulgarian Chemical Communications, Special Issue H   unpublished
As a fishery commodity for more than a thousand years, edible jellyfish is an important seafood worldwide. In order to form the crunchy and crispy texture, jellyfish is traditionally processed by curing with salt and hydrated aluminum potassium sulfate. Therefore, potential bioaccumulation of aluminum after dietary consumption of alum-processed jellyfish has received great attention. Here, the concentration of Al in alum-processed jellyfish was measured by inductively coupled plasma mass
more » ... metry. Furthermore, the safety assessment of alum-processed jellyfish, especially its effects on Al accumulation in different organs were evaluated in mouse. The results indicated alum-processed jellyfish contain high concentrations of Al (549.90±4.66 mg/kg), which could be released into the in vitro human gastric digestion fluid achieving a concentration of 50.92±4.26 µg Al/L. Although no significant changes in the mortality rate, body weight, behavioral patterns, and neurotoxicity signs were observed after 30 days with intragastric administration of jellyfish slurry (up to 34.7 g/kg.bw), consumption of desalted jellyfish slurry significantly increased the Al accumulation in liver when given at medium (17.4 g/kg.bw) and high (34.7 g/kg.bw) doses. Moreover, the relative liver weights in the medium and high dose consumption group were lower than that in the control group. Furthermore, we show for the first time that organic acids such as citric acid may be a useful way to lower the Al concentration in jellyfish.
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