Mutagenicity and carcinogenicity prediction of sugar substitutes: an <i>in silico</i> approach with compound-gene interactions network

Sugar substitutes are mostly artificial, man-made industrial products used as additives in food and beverages. Most of these substances flow through the digestive tract and food chains, becoming emerging organic contaminants in various abiotic and biotic environmental media. Here, we predict the mutagenicity and carcinogenicity of commonly used sugar substitutes using in silico based methods. The simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES) of sugar substitutes was obtained from the PubChem database for toxicity predictions. Here, sixteen sugar substitutes tested out of these four compounds Glucin (GLU), and 5-nitro-2-propoxyaniline (P-4000), SCL, Ace were predicted as mutagens by using in silico tools such as LAZAR, pKCSM, and Toxtree. Based on the predicted results GLU and P-4000 were predicted as carcinogenic sugar substitutes. Also the study conducted compound gene interaction network to identify the direct connection between sugar substitutes and its corresponding receptors.