Evaluation of olestra in short-term genotoxicity assays

Olestra, a mixture of hexa-, hepta- and octa-esters formed from the reaction of sucrose with long-chain fatty acids, was evaluated for its genotoxic potential in the Salmonella/mammalian microsome test, the L5178Y thymidine kinase (TK+/-) mouse lymphoma assay, an unscheduled DNA synthesis assay in primary rat hepatocytes, and an in vitro cytogenetic assay in Chinese hamster ovary cells. The results indicated that olestra was non-genotoxic in these assays.