Use of (Q)SAR tools as a first step in a strategy to assign priority to substances migrating from printed paper and board food contact materials based on the genotoxic potential

In the last decade, several incidents with contaminants leaking from food packaging into food and drinks have raised concerns towards potential adverse health effects caused by exposure to these chemicals (e.g. bisphenol A). In 2011, the European Commission adopted a new regulation on the use of chemicals in plastics intended to come into contact with food. However, to this day, no regulation exists on chemicals used in other types of food contact materials (FCM). Consequently, non-plastic FCM are only covered by national legislation or by the general recommendations of the Council of Europe, containing ‘inventory lists’ of additives, monomers, solvents and other starting products that might be present in non-plastic FCM. Since no (recent) safety evaluation has been carried out for over 5000 substances present in these inventory lists, identification of substances requiring further data is urgently needed. The current study aims to develop a strategy to assign priority to substances used in printed paper and board. First, information on substances present in inventory lists from the Council of Europe or from national legislation was assembled in a database. Afterwards, their genotoxic potential was evaluated in silico with the QSAR software Toxtree and Derek NexusTM. An applicability domain assessment was performed to ensure the fitting of the test compounds in the models. Next, an extensive literature search on all compounds scoring positive in both Toxtree and Derek NexusTM will be performed, followed by in vitro genotoxicity testing of those chemicals, most likely to need an in depth safety evaluation.