Semi-quantitative evaluation of genotoxic activity of chemical substances and evidence for a biological threshold of genotoxic activity.

In Japan, the Chemical Substances Control Law requires evaluation of the genotoxic potential of chemical substances semi-quantitatively by application of a ranking system. During the past 10 years under the law, 1049 new chemical substances were evaluated by a reverse mutation assay in bacteria (RMA) and a chromosome aberration test in cultured mammalian cells (CAT). Of them, 130 (12.4%) were positive in the RMA and 402 (38.3%) were positive in the CAT. Eighty (7.6%) were positive in both tests. Fifty (4.8%) were positive only in the RMA, 322 (30.7%) were positive only in the CAT, and 452 (43.1%) were positive in either the RMA or the CAT. Thus, the tests complement each other in detecting genotoxic substances in vitro. To explore the "threshold" concept, we compared the genotoxic responses of Salmonella typhimurium tester strains with and without DNA repair capacity. Recently constructed strains of TA1535 lacking O(6)-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase genes (ogt(ST) or ada(ST) and ogt(ST)) showed dose-related increases in the number of revertants induced by N-ethyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine, methyl methanesulfonate, dimethylnitrosamine, and ethylnitrosourea, while in the same dose ranges the parental strain TA1535 did not. This finding suggests that there is a threshold at which all DNA damage induced by low dose levels of genotoxic chemicals are repaired. That biological threshold seems to exist for both DNA and non-DNA targeting chemicals.