Radioprotective properties of food colorant sodium copper chlorophyllin on human peripheral blood cells in vitro

Sodium copper chlorophyllin (CHL) is a food colorant that exhibits many beneficial properties, including potential for use in radiotherapy. Nevertheless, genotoxicity studies investigating radioprotective properties against gamma-radiation on human cells are rather scarce. The aim of this study was to assess the cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and induction of malondialdehyde formation on CHL pre-treated whole blood cells after an absorbed dose of 5 Gy gamma-radiation. Irradiated whole blood cells pre-treated with 100, 500, and 1000 mu g/mL CHL showed less DNA-strand breaks (10.92 +/- 0.74%, 10.69 +/- 0.68%, and 8.81 +/- 0.69%, respectively) than untreated irradiated cells (12.58 +/- 0.88%). At the same time, the level of malondialdehyde was lower in CHL pre-treated samples with 100, 500, and 1000 mu g/mL CHL (14.11 +/- 0.43, 16.35 +/- 2.82, and 13.08 +/- 1.03 mu mol/L, respectively) compared to untreated irradiated samples (24.11 +/- 0.25 mu mol/L). Regarding cytotoxicity, no changes were observed in the samples tested. Another important finding is that CHL had no cyto/genotoxic properties toward human blood cells. Taken together, since CHL had no cyto/genotoxic effects and showed good radioprotective properties in human blood cells, further studies should be conducted in order to find its possible application in radiotherapy.