Acrylamide: induction of heritable translocation in male mice.

Acrylamide (AA), known to induce dominant lethals in male rodents, was studied in the mouse heritable translocation test by using intraperitoneal injections on 5 consecutive days. Matings on days 7-10 following the last injection yielded a high frequency of translocation carriers in the F1 male population, which demonstrated that acrylamide is an effective inducer of translocations in postmeiotic germ cells. As an inducer of both dominant lethals and heritable translocations in late spermatids and early spermatozoa, AA is similar to alkylating agents such as ethylmethanesulfonate and ethylene oxide. However, AA's chemical structure, the nature of adducts formed with DNA, and it lack of mutagenicity in bacteria suggest a different mechanism as the basis for AA's germ cell mutagenicity.