GFP-fused yeast cells as whole-cell biosensors for genotoxicity evaluation of nitrosamines.

Nitrosamine compounds, represented by N-nitrosodimethylamine, are regarded as potentially genotoxic impurities (PGIs) due to their hazard warning structure, which has attracted great attention of pharmaceutical companies and regulatory authorities. At present, great research gaps exist in genotoxicity assessment and carcinogenicity comparison of nitrosamine compounds. In this work, a collection of GFP-fused yeast cells representing DNA damage repair pathways were used to evaluate the genotoxicity of eight nitrosamine compounds (10-6-105 μg/mL). The high-resolution expression profiles of GFP-fused protein revealed the details of the DNA damage repair of nitrosamines. Studies have shown that nitrosamine compounds can cause extensive DNA damage and activate multiple repair pathways. The evaluation criteria based on the total expression level of protein show a good correlation with the mammalian carcinogenicity data TD50, and the yeast cell collection can be used as a potential reliable criterion for evaluating the carcinogenicity of compounds. The assay based on DNA damage pathway integration has high sensitivity and can be used as a supplementary method for the evaluation of trace PGIs in actual production. KEY POINTS: • The genotoxicity mechanism of nitrosamines was systematically studied. • The influence of compound structure on the efficacy of genotoxicity was explored. • GFP-fused yeast cells have the potential to evaluate impurities in production.