Effect of feeding solanidine, solasodine and tomatidine to non-pregnant and pregnant mice

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Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71
                                                                                                      www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchemtox

            Effect of feeding solanidine, solasodine and tomatidine to
                        non-pregnant and pregnant mice
                                  Mendel Friedman*, P.R. Henika, B.E. Mackey
             Western Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, 800 Buchanan Street, Albany, CA 94710, USA

                                                             Accepted 17 June 2002

Abstract
   The aglycone forms of three steroidal glycoalkaloids—solanidine (derived by hydrolytic removal of the carbohydrate side chain
from the potato glycoalkaloids a-chaconine and a-solanine), solasodine (derived from solasonine in eggplants) and tomatidine
(derived from a-tomatine in tomatoes)—were evaluated for their effects on liver weight increase (hepatomegaly) in non-pregnant
and pregnant mice and on fecundity in pregnant mice fed for 14 days on a diet containing 2.4 mmol/kg of aglycone. In non-preg-
nant mice, observed ratios of % liver weights to body weights (%LW/BWs) were significantly greater than those of the control
values as follows (all values in % vs matched controls S.D.): solanidine, 25.5 13.2; solasodine 16.8  12.0; and tomatidine,
6.0 7.1. The corresponding increases in pregnant mice were: solanidine, 5.3 10.7; solasodine, 33.1 15.1; tomatidine, 8.4  9.1.
For pregnant mice (a) body weight gains were less with the algycones than with controls: solanidine, 36.1 14.5; solasodine,
17.9 14.3; tomatidine, 11.9 18.1; (b) litter weights were less than controls: solanidine, 27.0  17.1; solasodine, 15.5  16.8;
tomatidine, no difference; (c) the %LTW/BW ratio was less than that of the controls and was significant only for solasodine,
8.7 13.7; and (d) the average weight of the fetuses was less than the controls: solanidine, 11.2  15.2; solasodine, 11.4  9.4;
tomatidine, no difference. Abortion of fetuses occurred in five of 24 pregnant mice on the solanidine and none on the other diets. To
obtain evidence for possible mechanisms of the observed in vivo effects, the four glycoalkaloids (a-chaconine, a-solanine, solasonine
and a-tomatine) mentioned above and the aglycones solanidine and tomatidine were also evaluated in in vitro assays for estrogenic
activity. Only solanidine at 10 mm concentration exhibited an increase in the MCF-7 human breast cancer cell proliferation assay.
Generally, the biological effects of solanidine differ from those of the parent potato glycoalkaloids. Possible mechanisms of these
effects and the implication of the results for food safety and plant physiology are discussed.
Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Feeding studies; Hepatomegaly; Pregnant mice; Solanidine; Solasodine; Tomatidine

1. Introduction                                                           (Slanina, 1990), in the United States it is about 170 g
                                                                          (Friedman et al., 1996), and in the United Kingdom,
  In order to improve the nutritional value and safety of                 140 g (Hopkins, 1995). The cited amount for the UK is
some plant foods consumed by humans, a need exists to                     estimated to contain 14 mg of glycoalkaloids. Although
delineate the biological potencies and mechanisms of                      the glycoalkaloid concentration of most commercial
action of structurally different potentially toxic gly-                    potatoes is usually below a suggested safety guideline of
coalkaloids and their steroidal aglycone metabolites.                     200 mg/kg of fresh potatoes, the concentration can
Glycoalkaloid-containing potatoes and potato products                     increase substantially on exposure of potatoes to light
are widely consumed (Friedman and Dao, 1992). The                         or as a result of mechanical injury including peeling and
daily per capita intake of potatoes in Sweden is 300 g                    slicing (Dao and Friedman, 1994). Glycoalkaloids are
                                                                          largely unaffected by food processing including baking,
                                                                          cooking and frying (Friedman and McDonald, 1999).
      Abbreviations: DMEM, Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium;             Moreover, the potato glycoalkaloid a-chaconine is more
DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide; ER, estrogen receptor; %LW/BWs,%
liver weights to body weights; ODC, ornithine decarboxylase.
                                                                          toxic than a-solanine, certain ratios of the two gly-
   * Corresponding author.                                                coalkaloids may act synergistically, and their ratios may
      E-mail address: mfried@pw.usda.gov (M. Friedman).                   vary in different potato varieties. The estimated highest
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62                               M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71

safe level of total potato glycoalkaloids for human con-            ses in humans (Chataing et al., 1997), to protect mice
sumption is about 1 mg/kg body weight, the acute toxic              against infection by Salmonella typhimurium (Gubarev et
dose is estimated to be at 1.75 mg/kg body weight, and a            al., 1998), to enhance the duration of action of anesthetics,
lethal dose may be 3–6 mg/kg body weight.                           which act by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase (McGehee et
   Glycoalkaloids appear to be more toxic to humans                 al., 2000), and to potentiate the immune response of vac-
than to rodents (reviewed in Morris and Lee, 1984;                  cines in mice (Rajananthanan et al., 2000). Solasodine
Friedman and McDonald, 1997). The reported toxicity                 may protect against skin cancer (Cham, 1994) and tomati-
of glycoalkaloids a due to anticholinesterase effects on             dine may benefit cancer chemotherapy by inhibiting mul-
the central nervous system (Duan, 1995; Nigg et al.,                tidrug resistance in human cancer cells (Lavie et al., 2001).
1996) and disruption of cell membranes (Blankemeyer                    As part of an effort designed to improve food safety
et al., 1992, 1997, 1998). Symptoms of glycoalkaloid                through identification and reduction of the content of
toxicity experienced by humans include colic pain in the            the most toxic alkaloids in plant foods using safety
abdomen and stomach, gastroenteritis, diarrhea, vomit-              evaluation in parallel with plant genetic studies, we
ing, burning sensation about the lips and mouth, hot                previously evaluated the ability of dietary steroidal
skin, fever, rapid pulse and headache. Another undesir-             aglycones to induce hepatomegaly in non-pregnant mice
able effect may be glycoalkaloid- and/or aglycone-                   at the 2.4 mmol/kg diet level (Friedman et al., 1996).
induced craniofacial malformations in hamsters (Gaffield              The present study extends and complements the earlier
and Keeler, 1993, 1996) and multi-organ malformations               investigation by comparing effects in non-pregnant to
in frog embryos (Friedman et al., 1991, 1992) at levels             pregnant mice. In this study, we looked for differences
similar to those present in some potato varieties. Folic            in body weight and liver weight in non-pregnant and
acid, glucose 6-phosphate and NADP protected frog                   pregnant mice, differences in litter size and litter weight
embryos both against disruption of cell membranes and               and fetal weight in pregnant mice following dietary
glycoalkaloid-induced teratogenicity (Rayburn et al.,               exposure to 2.4 mmol/kg of solasodine, tomatidine or
1995a; Friedman et al., 1997). Glucose 6-phosphate and              solanidine for 14 days. This dose is based approximately
NADP also inhibited glycoalkaloid-induced lysis of                  on the amount of solanidine that can be produced after
human erythrocytes (Roddick and Leonard, 1999).                     consumption of the previously mentioned maximum
   The steroidal aglycones (Fig. 1) are formed after                safe level of potato glycoalkaloids. To obtain evidence
removal of the carbohydrate side-chain from the gly-                for a possible mechanism for the observed in vivo effects
coalkaloids. Solanidine is derived from the potato                  we also evaluated the four glycoalkaloids and two agly-
glycoalkaloids a-chaconine and a-solanine, tomatidine               cones in several estrogen receptor (ER) in vitro assays.
from the tomato glycoalkaloid a-tomatine, and solaso-
dine from the eggplant glycolkaloids solamargine and
solasonine. The aglycones may exist in the plant as                 2. Materials and methods
degradation products of glycoalkaloids (Zitnak, 1961;
Bushway et al., 1988). Generally, the exposure of                   2.1. Materials
humans and animals to the aglycones occurs when gly-
coalkaloids are hydrolyzed in vivo either non-enzymati-               Time-mated mice and Simonsen Custom Chow #7
cally (e.g. acid hydrolysis in the stomach) or                      were obtained from Simonsen Laboratories (Gilroy, CA,
enzymatically (e.g bacterial glycosidases in the gastro-            USA). The test compounds were obtained from Sigma
intestinal tract). Concern over physiological effects of             (St. Louis, MO, USA). They tested as chromato-
the aglycones is based on the fact that plasma levels of            graphically pure by HPLC (Friedman and Levin, 1992).
solanidine in humans parallel the amount of potatoes
consumed (Claringbold et al., 1982; Matthew et al.,                 2.2. Diets
1983; Harvey et al., 1985a,b, 1986; Hellenas et al.,
1992), their ability to affect steroid hormone physiology              Mice were fed pelleted or ground Simonsen Custom
(Dixit et al., 1989), their induction of liver weight               Chow #7 diet with or without test compound. Diets
increases (hepatomegaly) in mice (Friedman et al.,                  were stored in a cold room for 3 weeks. They were not
1996), and their possible accumulation by newly intro-              tested for stability or purity. The % of test compound
duced varieties of potatoes (Moehs et al., 1997). These             was based on equivalent mmol/kg diet. For solasodine,
considerations, as well as the sparsity of studies on the           for example, 0.1% (1 g per kg diet) corresponds to [(1 g/
biological effects of orally fed glycoalkaloids and meta-            416 (mol. wt))1000 (mmol/m)] or 2.4 mmol/kg diet.
bolites, suggest the need for nutritional and safety studies        To prepare the diet, all compounds were each triturated
of both glycoalkaloids and the aglycones (Hopkins, 1995).           into a fine powder, weighed into one half of the total
   Glycoalkaloids and aglycones may also have beneficial             diet, and mixed for 10 min in a Twin Shell Dry Blender
effects. Glycoalkaloids are reported to inactivate the               (Patterson Kelly Co., East Strousber, PA, USA). The
Herpes simplex, Herpes zoster, and Herpex genitalis viru-           remaining diet was then added and mixed for 10 min.
M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71                              63

                                   Fig. 1. Structures of aglycones, glycoalkaloids, and estradiol.

  In a previous study (Friedman et al., 1996), dose–                     At this time, mice were divided into two groups of 10
response data demonstrated that increased liver weights               and fed Simonsen Custom Chow #7 or diet with test
(hepatomegaly) were observed in adult female Swiss–                   compound starting with 70 g/week in glass food-cups
Webster mice treated with up to 2.4 mmol/kg diets of                  fitted with stainless-steel retainers. Each mouse was also
solanidine, solasodine or tomatidine for 14 days. Sig-                weighed at this time. The mice were observed daily and
nificant percent increases in %LW/BW for these groups                  litter was changed daily. An automatic timer regulated
were: solasodine, 25.5%; solanidine, 21%. This con-                   the 6 am–6 pm light/dark cycle in an animal room at
centration of alkaloids in the diet and the 14-day treat-             20  C. Mice were given water ad lib. Food consumption
ment period was therefore selected for comparison of                  is considered an estimate because food could be kicked
effects in non-pregnant and pregnant mice.                             out of the cup and/or contaminated with feces or urine.
                                                                      For unexplained reasons, the initial body weights in the
2.3. Feeding studies                                                  tomatidine group were lower than for the other groups.
                                                                         The 320 mice were used for eight experiments with
   The study protocol was approved by our Animal                      solasodine diets and four each with tomatidine and
Care and Use Committee, which follows the guide-                      solanidine diets. Data were pooled and reported in
lines on the humane use of laboratory animals                         Tables 1–4 for each test diet and its matched control. At
(NRC, 1996). For each experiment, 20 timed-preg-                      the time of necropsy (17–18 days’ gestation, 2–3 days
nant Swiss Webster mice were obtained from Simonsen                   before parturition), the mice were divided into pregnant
Laboratories (Gilroy, CA, USA) (1–2 days’ gestation,                  and non-pregnant groups. A non-pregnant mouse was
25–36 g). Sixteen 2-week experiments were run for a                   defined as one that showed no signs of placenta or
total of 320 animals received. The 20 mice were housed                uterine horn development at the time of necropsy. Dead
individually and randomized at the time of arrival. They              fetuses were observed to be pale in color, limp and
were housed in plastic shoe-box cages with hardwood                   ‘watery’. Aborted fetuses (observed only with group
shavings for litter and were fed pelleted Simonsen Cus-               treated with solanidine) expelled from the dam were
tom Chow #7. ‘‘Time-mated’’ mice were given a 48-h                    found in the litter and were not in the process of
period after transport for adaptation to our animal                   resorption (Table 1). At necropsy, the mice were weighed,
facility. Thus, the 2-week experiments were started on                livers were dissected, and live fetuses were removed from
day 4 of gestation.                                                   the uterine horn. Livers and live fetuses were blotted with
64                                            M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71

Table 1                                                                                  Data were reported for 95 non-pregnant and 174
Acceptance of pregnant mice used in this study                                        pregnant animals (Tables 2–4). The acceptance of preg-
Pregnant group        Litter sizea    Accepted rangea      Rejected     Dead          nant animals was based on litter size of live plus dead
                                                                                      fetuses. We determined average litter size and standard
Control               12 3b           9–15                14c          10            deviations and rejected animals with low or high litter
Solasodine            11 4            7–15                11d           9
Control               13 3           10–16                 4e          10
                                                                                      sizes outside the standard deviation (Table 1). The
Tomatidine            12 4            8–16                 3f           2            rejection of low litter sizes was based on dams with only
Control               11 4            7–15                 5g           4            one to three fetuses and with no evidence, such as dead
Solanidine            11 4            7–15                10h          16            fetuses, that litter size had been greater at time of
  a
    Live plus dead fetuses.
                                                                                      gestation. The rejection of high litter sizes (16–19 fetu-
  b
    Averagestandard deviation.                                                       ses) was based on the lower fetal weights. We thus nor-
  c
    One moribund; five low litter weight; eight high litter weight.                    malized the population with respect to litter size and
  d
    Seven low litter weight; four high litter weight.                                 subjected the data pools to statistics. Pooled data for
  e
    Two low litter weight; two high litter weight.                                    the solanidine test group was significantly lower for lit-
  f
    Three low litter weight.
  g
    Five low litter weight.
                                                                                      ter vs its matched control (Table 4). Five animals from
  h
    One moribund; two low litter weight; two high litter weight; five                  the solanidine test group were rejected due to abortions.
abortions.                                                                            Three mice were moribund at the start of the experiment

Table 2
Effects of dietary solasodine, tomatidine and solanidine on body weight, liver weight and food intake in non-pregnant adult female mice treated with
2.4 mmol/kg diet for 14 daysa

Group            Sample size         Body wt        Body wt        Body wt             Food intake    Food intake        Liver wt     Liver wt/body
                 (n)                 initial (g)    final (g)       difference (g)       (g/d)          (g/day/kg/mouse)   (g)          wt (%)

Control          24                  29.91.9       30.21.9        0.30.9            6.0 0.9       200 27            1.610.20    5.330.49
Solasodine       24                  31.22.8       30.32.8       0.91.6b           5.9 0.6       196 23            1.890.29c   6.220.64c
Control          11                  32.72.4       32.32.3       0.41.2            5.7 0.9       177 24            1.720.17    5.300.28
Tomatidine       14                  29.62.5b      29.12.7b      0.51.3            5.7 0.8       195 27            1.640.20    5.620.37c
Control          12                  30.22.3       29.92.4       0.30.8            5.9 0.8       196 23            1.500.17    5.000.27
Solanidine       10                  31.12.6       28.42.3       2.70.9b           6.1 0.9       215 44            1.780.19c   6.270.66c
  a
      Listed values are meansS.D.
  b
      Means which were significantly less than group control value. Statistically significant from control (P
M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71                                     65

Table 4
Effects of dietary solasodine, tomatidine and solanidine on dam body weight, litter size and fetus weight in pregnant female mice treated with 2.4
mmol/kg diet for 14 daysa

Group                  Sample size          Body wt             Litter size               Litter wt           Litter wt/body        Fetus wt
                       (n)                  final (g)            (group average)           (g)                 wt (%)                (average) (g)

Control                38                   52.14.2            11.91.6                  11.9 2.1           22.83.1              1.00 0.09
Solasodine             45                   48.14.0b           11.42.2                  10.0 2.1b          20.83.1b             0.89 0.09b
Control                25                   57.74.5            13.01.7                  13.0 2.1           22.42.5              0.99 0.09
Tomatidine             23                   52.25.0b           12.42.6                  13.1 3.7           24.85.0              1.05 0.16
Control                23                   54.35.7            12.11.9                  11.9 3.0           21.63.8              0.97 0.13
Solanidine             20                   44.44.4b           10.22.6b                  8.72.0b           19.43.4b             0.86 0.15b
  a
      Listed values are meansS.D.
  b
      Means which were significantly less than group control value. Statistically significant from control (P
66                                   M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71

Fig. 2. Body and liver weights (% difference from controls) in non-pregnant Swiss–Webster mice fed for 14 days a diet containing solasodine,
tomatidine or solanidine (2.4 mmol/kg diet). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals on means based on non-pooled variance estimates.

that aglycone-induced hepatomegaly is similar for the                   of the pregnant mouse are in competition with solani-
non-pregnant mice of both studies and for the pregnant                  dine induction of hepatomegaly, (b) there is a counter-
mice of this study. The %LW/BWs for the three agly-                     active hepatotoxicity which concomitantly lowers liver
cones from the two studies are not statistically different.              weight, and/or (c) there is less absorption in the preg-
The hepatomegaly induced by the three compounds is                      nant than in the non-pregnant mice.
comparable in both studies.                                                The data in Tables 2–4 and Figs. 2 and 3 also show
  In the current study,%LW/BWs in pregnant mice                         that the body weight gains in the dams were sig-
were also greater than in controls (Table 3). The livers                nificantly lower in mice treated with the three alkaloids,
grew in direct proportion to the body weight gains in                   litter weight as a percent body weight (%LTW/BW) was
the pregnant mouse. Thus, if hepatomegaly were to                       lower than the control values for solasodine, and the
occur, it would add weight to a growing liver. We did                   average weight of the fetuses was lower than control
observe, however, that solanidine-induced increase in                   values for solanidine and solasodine.
%LW/BW was considerably less in pregnant mice than                         In a previous study on adult female mice, we observed
in non-pregnant mice. Possibly (a) the steroid hormones                 that tomatidine has only one-third the potency of sola-
M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71                                      67

Fig. 3. Liver, litter and fetus weights (% difference from controls) in pregnant Swiss–Webster mice fed for 14 days a diet containing solasodine,
tomatidine or solanidine (2.4 mmol/kg diet). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals on means based on non-pooled variance estimates.

sodine in inducing hepatomegaly. This study confirms                        pregnant mice results in significantly lower litter size
that tomatidine is the least toxic of the three compounds                  (10.2  2.6 vs 12.1  1.9) and lower fetus weights
evaluated, roughly one-third as effective as solanidine in                  (0.86  0.15 vs 0.97  0.13) (Table 4). Additional studies
increasing %LW/BW in both non-pregnant mice (Fig. 2)                       are warranted to assess the relevance of these results to
and pregnant mice (Fig. 3). These data also show that                      humans.
for tomatidine, body weight gains in the dam and litter                      To place our findings into a wider perspective, we
weights were comparable to controls (Table 4 and                           briefly summarize other reported biological effects of
Fig. 3).                                                                   solanidine. It is the major metabolite in rats following
   We were most interested in solanidine because it is                     oral consumption of the potato glycoalkaloid a-chaco-
formed in vivo via either acid or enzymatic hydrolysis                     nine (Norred et al., 1976). It is present in the plasma (up
from the widely consumed potato glycoalkaloids a-sola-                     to 92.5 nmol/l) and saliva (up to 20% of serum levels) of
nine or a-chaconine, and it is absorbed and/or persist in                  humans consuming potatoes—plasma levels are pro-
tissues after hydrolysis. The current study shows that                     portional to the amount of potatoes consumed, sug-
dietary administration of 2.4 mmol/kg solanidine to                        gesting that glycosidases can hydrolytically remove the
68                               M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71

carbohydrate side-chain from the glycoalkaloids in vivo             assays suggest that solanidine’s small but statistically
(Matthew et al., 1983; Harvey et al., 1985a,b, 1986;                significant positive effect on cell proliferation is inde-
Hellenas et al., 1992). It has been detected in human               pendent of the ER signaling pathways. It is possible that
post-mortem liver, suggesting that it is stored in the liver        solanidine operates through membrane-bound estrogen
for prolonged periods (Claringbold et al., 1980, 1982). It          receptors that stimulate signal transduction pathways
does not induce micronuclei formation in erythrocytes               (Nemere and Farach-Carson, 1998).
of weanling or fetal mice (Friedman and Henika, 1992).                 It is also instructive to examine the structural features
It induces formation of terata (cranial malformations)              of solanidine that may be responsible for the estrogenic
in hamsters (Gaffield and Keeler, 1996) and reversible                activity. The 3-OH group of solanidine (Fig. 1) must be
hepatomegaly in adult female mice (Friedman et al.,                 involved in estrogen receptor binding since the activity
1996). Unlike the glycoalkaloids, solanidine was not                is lost on glycosylation to the glycoalkaloids a-chaco-
toxic to frog embryos (Friedman et al., 1991; Blanke-               nine and a-solanine. The steroidal part of the molecule
meyer et al., 1992), did not induce ornithine decarbox-             must also be involved since the inactive tomatidine also
ylase (ODC) in rat liver (Caldwell et al., 1991), showed            has an OH group.
low activity as an inhibitor of human acetylcholinester-               In an earlier study, mice were fed freeze-dried potato
ase (Duan, 1995), and has estrogen-like properties (pre-            berries (containing 221 and 159 mg/kg of fresh weight of
sent study). It is also noteworthy that the non-toxicity            the glycoalkaloids a-chaconine and a-solanine, respec-
of a-tomatine compared to other glycoalkaloids is due               tively) at 1, 5, 10, 20 and 40% of the diet, as well as 10%
to its ability to form an insoluble complex with choles-            casein diets supplemented with 50–1600 mg of the agly-
terol in the digestive tract of hamsters which is then              cone solasodine (Friedman, 1992). At day 14, all sur-
eliminated in the feces (Friedman et al., 2000a,b).                 viving animals were necropsied, organs weighed, and
   These observations and the results of the present                blood chemistries analyzed. Selected tissues from mice
study on solanidine-induced changes in liver weights,               fed the control, solasodine and 20% potato berry diets
fetal mortality, and loss of fetuses suggest that the bio-          were examined histologically. All mice fed the 40%
logical effects of solanidine often differ from those of the          potato berry diets died. Effects noted with the solasodine
parent potato glycoalkaloids a-chaconine and a-sola-                diets included elevated serum alkaline phosphatase, glu-
nine from which it is derived. However, we do not know              tamic–pyruvic transaminase (GPT) and glutamic-oxa-
whether consumption by humans of potatoes containing                loacetic transaminase (GOT); elevated liver weight as a
the highest recommended concentrations of glycoalk-                 percent of body weight; decreased body weight gain; and
aloids mentioned earlier will produce sufficient solani-              increased incidence of liver cholangiohepatitis and gas-
dine in vivo to elicit any of the biological effects                 tric gland dilation/degeneration. Solasodine- and solani-
observed in mice.                                                   dine-induced hepatomegaly is reversible when adult
                                                                    female mice are taken off the alkaloid-supplemented diet
3.1. Mechanistic aspects                                            (Friedman et al., 1996). This indicates that hepatomegaly
                                                                    may be a benign adaptive response.
  Possible mechanisms that govern biological activities                It is also relevant that the steroid hormone dehy-
of aglycones are not well understood. Because solani-               droepiandrosterone (DHEA) is reported to induce
dine was the most toxic compound, it was of interest to             hepatomegaly in rats (Bellei et al., 1992) and mice
find out whether induction of estrogen may be involved               (Friedman et al., 1996). Hepatomegaly induced by the
in its mechanism of action at the cellular level. The               hormone in rat livers was associated with a significant
results show that of all the compounds tested, only                 increase in the size and number of hepatocyte peroxi-
solanidine was found to be active in the breast cancer              somes and of peroxisomal marker enzymes catalase and
cell proliferation assay (Fig. 4). In this assay, solanidine        fatty acyl CoA oxidase. It remains to be shown whether
(a) enhanced the activity of estradiol in the estrogen-             the solanidine-induced hepatomegaly is also accom-
depleted cells (bar graphs); and (b) at a concentration of          panied by changes in liver peroxisomes.
10 mm, significantly increased cell numbers after 7 days                The biological effects are probably not due to geno-
in the estrogen-depleted cells without added estradiol              toxicity at the DNA level since glycoalkaloids and
(dose–response plot). The other aglycone (tomatidine)               aglycones were inactive in both the in vitro Ames
as well as the four glycoalkaloids tested (a-chaconine,             mutagenicity and in the in vivo adult and foetal red
a-solanine, solasonine and a-tomatine) were inactive in             blood cell micronucleus chromosome assays (Friedman
the cell proliferation assay.                                       and Henika, 1992).
  In additional assays, aimed at finding possible                       Finally, although rumen microorganisms catalyze the
mechanistic aspects, there was no significant effect on               transformation of potato glycoalkaloids to solanidine
gene transcriptional activation by any of the com-                  and its dihydro derivative, 5b-solanidan-3b-ol (King
pounds tested in either estrogen-depleted conditions and            and McQueen, 1981), solanidine was not found in milk
or the presence of estradiol. The results from these                from cows fed a glycoalkaloid-rich potato waste
M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71                                             69

Fig. 4. Results from separate experiments on the effect of aglycones and glycoalkaloids on proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. (A): a, DMSO
control; b, solanidine; c, tomatidine. Bars represent mean values. Error bars represent SD deviations from the mean (n=4). Solanidine but not
tomatidine enhanced the number of estrogen-depleted cells with added estradiol (E2). (B): Dose–response of solanidine on proliferation of breast
cancer cells. Estrogen-depleted MCF-7 cells were plated at a density of 105 cells per well in six-well plates and treated with solanidine at the indicated
concentrations, in presence (closed circles) or absence (open circles) of estradiol, E2 (1 nm). Duplicate aliquots of cells form individual wells were
counted after 7 days. Results are shown as the mean and SD for four separate experiments. *Significantly different (P
70                                      M. Friedman et al. / Food and Chemical Toxicology 41 (2003) 61–71

a-tomatine which does not appear to be toxic when                          Dao, L., Friedman, M., 1994. Chlorophyll, chlorogenic acid,
consumed orally in moderate amounts (Friedman et al.,                        glycoalkaloids, and protease inhibitor content of fresh and
                                                                             green potatoes. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 42,
2000a,b). Our studies (Kozukue et al., 1999; Friedman,
                                                                             633–639.
in press) on the inheritance of tomatine in potatoes of                    Dixit, V.P., Gupta, R.S., Gupta, S., 1989. Antifertility plant products:
somatic hybrids suggest that this may be a feasible                          testicular cell population dynamics following solasodine adminis-
approach.                                                                    tration in rhesus monkeys (Macca mulatta). Andrologia 21, 542–
                                                                             546.
                                                                           Duan, G.M., 1995. Inhibition of potato glycoalkaloids to human
                                                                             blood cholinesterase. Chinese Biochemical Journal 11, 368–369.
Acknowledgements                                                           Friedman, M., 1992. Composition and safety evaluation of potato
                                                                             berries, potato and tomato seeds, potatoes and potato alkaloids. In:
  We thank Jacque E. Riby and Leonard F. Bjeldanes                           Finley, J.W., Armstrong, S.F. (Eds.), Assessment of Food Safety.
of the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicol-                       ACS Symposium Series 484. American Chemical Society, Washing-
ogy, University of California, Berkeley for the estrogen                     ton, DC, pp. 429–462.
                                                                           Friedman, M., 2002. Tomato glycoalkaloids: role in the plant and in
activity assays. We also thank Carol E. Levin for her                        the diet. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, in press.
help with the preparation of the manuscript and a jour-                    Friedman, M., Brandon, D.L., 2001. Nutritional and health benefits of
nal referee for helpful comments.                                            soy proteins. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 49, 1069–
                                                                             1086.
                                                                           Friedman, M., Burns, C.F., Butchko, C.A., Blankemeyer, J.T., 1997.
                                                                             Folic acid protects against potato glycoalkaloid a-chaconine-
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