The effect of caffeine in the in vivo SCE and micronucleus mutagenicity tests

Caffeine which was administered per os to outbred mice either twice, 30 and 6 h before sacrifice or once, 30 h before sacrifice, at dose levels of 50, 75 or 100 mg/kg body weight only caused a weak induction of micronuclei at the highest dose. Again a level of 100 mg caffeine per kg body weight was required before a weak but not significant effect could be observed in the micronucleus test using a mutagen-sensitive inbred strain of mice. In Chinese hamsters caffeine doses of 45, 75, 150 or 300 mg/kg body weight either given once or twice per os at the same time schedule as used for the mice also caused a clear cut induction of micronuclei only at the highest dose level. In the SCE test with Chinese hamster again 300 mg of caffeine were necessary to obtain a mutagenic effect although this test is considered to be more sensitive to mutagenic damage than the micronucleus test. It can therefore be concluded that caffeine causes DNA damage only at dose levels in the LD50 range which is higher for hamsters than for mice.