In vitro transformation of C3H/10T1/2 and NIH/3T3 cells by acrylonitrile and acrylamide.

Acrylonitrile (AN) and acrylamide (AM) are carcinogenic in a number of rodent organs and AN is a suspected human carcinogen. We sought to determine whether AN and/or AM could produce morphological transformation in vitro in C3H/10T1/2 and NIH/3T3 mouse fibroblast cells. Both AN and AM induced a dose-dependent cytotoxic effect in C3H/10T1/2 and NIH/3T3 cells and readily transformed both cell lines. Our conclusions are based on the appearance of cells exhibiting a transformed phenotype and growth in soft agar. AN and AM transformed NIH/3T3 cells to a greater extent than C3H/10T1/2 cells. This is the first reported transformation of cells in vitro by AM.