Xylans are present naturally in various plants and have important use in nutrition,food,novel material and biotechnology; however,data regarding their systemic toxicity and safety evaluation is still limited.This study investigated the potential toxicity of xylan from sugarcane bagasse by an acute oral toxicity study in mice and a subchronic toxicity study in rats.In acute toxicity study,xylan was orally administered to mice three times a day at a total dose of 1.5 g kg-1 body weight(bw).No mortality or signs of toxicity was observed throughout the acute toxicity study.The Maximum Tolerated Dose of xylan for both sexes of mice was over 1.5 kg bw day-1.In the subchronic toxicity study,a total of 80 male and female rats were fed with diets containing 10%,5%,2.5%and 0%(control)xylan for 90 days.A toxicological assessment was performed including mortality,body and organ weights,food consumption,blood biochemistry,hematology,urinalysis,gross necropsy and histopathological examinations.There were no signs of toxicity and treatment-related changes in rats treated with xylan.The no-observed-adverse-effect level of xylan was 9.0 g kg-1 bw for males and 10.6 g kg-1 bw for females of rats under this experimental conditions.