RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Evaluation of Genotoxicity and Subclinical Toxicity of Agaricus blazei Murrill in the Ames Test and in Histopathological and Biochemical Analysis JF In Vivo JO In Vivo FD International Institute of Anticancer Research SP 437 OP 445 VO 26 IS 3 A1 JIN-BIOU CHANG A1 HSU-FENG LU A1 NIEN-CHIEH LIAO A1 CHING-SUNG LEE A1 MING-YANG YEH A1 CHI-MING LIU A1 MING-TENG CHUNG A1 AU MAN-KUAN A1 JEN-JYH LIN A1 MING-FANG WU A1 JING-GUNG CHUNG YR 2012 UL http://iv.iiarjournals.org/content/26/3/437.abstract AB This study was conducted in order to assess the safety and tolerability of Agaricus blazei Murrill (ABM) in general toxicological studies by Ames tests in vitro and in 28-day feeding toxicity experiments. There were no dose-dependent increases or decreases in the number of revertant colonies both with and without metabolic activation in Ames tests. Doses of 10, 5 and 0.1 mg/per mouse of ABM daily were administered by oral gavage to mice (n=10) for 28 days. The effects on clinical observations, clinical pathology, and histopathology were evaluated. There were no significant changes in the brain, heart, kidney, liver, spleen, adrenal gland, testes or ovaries visually. With increasing doses, male and female treated mice did not show any gradual elevation of serum concentration in any of the nine items we examined, except for aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in females. The AST levels of the treatment by medium or high dose and the ALT levels of the treatment by high dose in females were abnormal in comparison to those of the baseline control group, with significant differences. On studying the histological changes in mice, tissue sections of negative control and experimental groups exhibited no apparent pathological alterations. In summary, the Ames test, pathology determinations, biochemical analysis and routine blood parameters were all normal, except for AST and ALT in females. Results showed that the statistical differences observed in one sex were not observed in the other and were not dose dependent.