Acetaldehyde-induced aneuploidy in cultured Chinese hamster cells.

In this paper we report the cytogenetic activity of ethanol (EA) and its main metabolic derivative, acetaldehyde (AA) in cultured Chinese hamster cells. AA induced an increase of aneuploidy and chromosome breaks and exchanges. EA only induced an increase of achromatic lesions (gaps). However, following treatment with AA, the most notable effect was an increase of hypodiploid cells and a parallel increase of multinucleated interphase cells, the frequency of hyperdiploid cells being considerably lower. A strong correlation (r = 0.93, P less than 0.01) has been found on comparing the frequency of hypodiploid cells to the frequency of hyperdiploid plus multinucleated interphase cells. We conclude that there exists a higher chance of hypodiploid cells reaching the second mitosis after treatment and that the main effect of AA is the induction of hypodiploidy rather than hyperdiploidy and chromosome aberrations.