Toxicity Profile for Acrylic acid (1990)

Abstract

Acrylic acid was severely irritating to the skin, mucous membranes and eyes of laboratory animals. In a guinea-pig study it gave some indication of sensitizing potential, but specification problems make interpretation difficult. A moderate acute toxicity was seen in experimental animals after ingestion, skin application or inhalation. Single doses given by stomach tube induced stomach changes in rats, whereas lung, liver and kidney injury were induced in rats treated by inhalation. The principal sites of toxic attack of repeated oral and inhalation exposures in rats and rabbits were the blood and kidney. No systemic organ damage occurred in mice in repeated inhalation studies. In rats, there was evidence of reproductive toxicity at oral doses toxic to the parents. In a study involving repeated skin application, acrylic acid produced local tumours in mice. It produced point mutations and chromosome damage in mammalian cells in culture. There was no evidence of genotoxicity in rats treated orally, in bacteria (Ames tests) or in the fruit fly.