Suppressing effect of vanillin on chromosome aberrations that occur spontaneously or are induced by mitomycin C in the germ cell line of Drosophila melanogaster.

In order to investigate the anticlastogenic effect of vanillin on ring-X loss, D. melanogaster females exposed to different vanillin concentrations were crossed with non-treated, MMC- or MMS-treated males. The results obtained with this in vivo investigation showed a significant inhibition of vanillin in the frequencies of spontaneous ring-X loss--59, 56, 38 and 36%--at the different concentrations used. In addition, vanillin treatment caused a significant suppression of MMC-induced ring-X loss. This decrease was observed only in the first 3 days after the interruption of vanillin treatment and at the concentrations of 0.5 and 1% of this flavoring agent. In contrast, vanillin did not show any effect on chromosome loss provoked by MMS. Therefore, the ring-X loss-decreasing effect of vanillin seemed to depend on the quality of DNA lesions and consequently on a specific enzymatic repair process present in the oocytes of D. melanogaster.