Aspartame-Induced Mitochondrial DNA Damage in Drosophila

Artificial sweeteners are added to many products sold in the market today, such as food, beverages, medicines, hygiene products. The possible toxic effects of any of these products, because they are used by many people in the community, can pose a risk for public health. DNA mutations generated by some artificial sweeteners have been investigated by some researchers but there is no information in the literature about the effects of these substances on mtDNA. mtDNA damage potentially is more important than deletions in nDNA because the whole mitochondrial genome is expressed without intron regions. Also, somatic mtDNA mutations have been increasingly observed in primary human cancers. The aim of the current study, detection of the effects of some artificial sweeteners on mtDNA damage and copy number in Drosophila melanogaster. The Quantitative PCR method was used for this purpose. According to our results, Aspartame created statistically significant mtDNA damage. There was no mtDNA damage in Saccharine+Cyclamate, Saccharine, Aceculfam K and Sucralose application groups. These results indicate that the effects of aspartame in human should carefully detect