Mutagenic activity of acrylamide in eukaryotic systems but not in bacteria.

The vinyl monomer acrylamide (AA) was studied for its activity in a range of genotoxicity tests, including the Salmonella/microsome test, the fluctuation test using Klebsiella pneumoniae, the test for gene mutations at the TK and HPRT loci in L5178Y mouse lymphoma cells, tests for chromosomal aberrations and SCEs in V79 Chinese hamster cells, the sex-linked recessive lethal (SLRL) and somatic mutation and recombination (SMART) assays in Drosophila melanogaster and the mouse bone marrow micronucleus assay. AA showed genotoxic activity in most systems. The bacterial tests did not respond, in compliance with literature data; also in the Drosophila SLRL test, no significant increase in mutation rate was observed.