Assessment of embryo/fetotoxicity and teratogenicity of azadirachtin in rats

To evaluate the potential effect of exposure to azadirachtin technical 12% throughout major organogenesis, rats were fed orally with 500, 1000 and 150 0 mg/kg/day azadirachtin on gestation days 6-15 and examined for evidence o f embryo/fetotoxicity and teratogenic effects. Technical azadirachtin at di fferent doses did not produce any significant adverse effects in reproducti ve parameters. Significant embryo/fetotoxic effects were not observed at te sted dose levels as evidenced by total number of implantations, post-implan tation loss and fetal weight. There were no major malformations, while some minor variants found in high doses were not compound or dose related. The absence of anomalies in fetal gross, visceral morphology and skeleton sugge sts that technical azadirachtin is not teratogenic in rats at the doses tes ted. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.