The synthetic food additives such as potassium sorbate (PS) are commonly used as a more effective protectant in food and pharmaceutical industries. Recently, increased chronic diseases generated more concerns in consumers and government about preservatives. Regarding contradictory results that has been attained via various studies on application of food additives, the exact monitoring of additives remains controversial by governments. Various research results showed that the increased PS intake (>25 mg/kg) may lead to cytotoxic and genotoxic effects via producing mutagenic compounds and inducing chromosome aberrations, sister chromatid exchange, DNA breakage. The aforementioned factors can develop many chronic diseases especially diabetes mellitus, cancers and etc. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the effects of PS on public health and determine its mechanism of action on various organs and cells. Therefore, this article aimed to evaluate the PS safety through overview of its effects on various tissues, cells and biological macromolecules.

诸如山梨酸钾（PS）之类的合成食品添加剂通常在食品和制药行业中用作更有效的保护剂。最近，越来越多的慢性病引起了消费者和政府对防腐剂的更多关注。关于通过各种食品添加剂应用研究获得的矛盾结果，政府对添加剂的精确监控仍存在争议。各种研究结果表明，增加的PS摄入量（> 25 mg / kg）可能通过产生诱变化合物并诱导染色体畸变，姐妹染色单体交换，DNA断裂而导致细胞毒性和遗传毒性作用。上述因素会导致许多慢性疾病，特别是糖尿病，癌症等。因此，有必要研究PS对公众健康的影响，并确定其对各种器官和细胞的作用机制。因此，本文旨在通过综述PS对各种组织，细胞和生物大分子的影响来评估其安全性。