Study of 106 organic and inorganic compounds in the Salmonella/microsome test.

One hundred and six compounds, subdivided into 12 chemical classes (5 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 7 epoxides and N-oxides, 5 nitro aromatics and heterocycles, 12 aromatic and heterocyclic amines, 2 azo compounds, 17 hydrazine derivatives, 16 miscellaneous aliphatics, 5 miscellaneous heterocycles, 11 miscellaneous organics, 11 hexavalent and 7 trivalent chromium compounds, 8 miscellaneous inorganics), were studied in the Salmonella/microsome test. Fifty-eight of them (54.7%) were found to be mutagenic and 4 additional compounds (3.8%) yielded a positive response following nitrosation in human gastric juice. The results are presented in a tabulated form, providing the following information for each test compound: (a) mutagenic response in 5 S. typhimurium his- strains (TA1535, TA1537, TA1538, TA98, TA100); (b) range of activity for positive compounds or maximum dose tested for negative compounds (in nmol/plate); (c) mutagenic potency (in revertants/nmol compound), varying over a 6.5 x 10(6)-fold range; (d) effect of S-9 mix containing rat (Aroclor)liver S-9 fractions on the mutagenic response (activation, increase, no change or decrease); (e) remarks concerning the influence of other metabolic systems (up to 10 different rat tissue S-9 fractions, mouse S-9 fractions, human S-9 fractions, cell preparations or biological fluids), the interaction between different compounds, the stability and the formation of mutagenic derivatives in human gastric juice and other experimental details. Overlapping of mutagenicity and carcinogenicity data was not evaluated, since the experimental protocol intentionally included a number of non-carcinogenic mutagens and of non-mutagenic carcinogens, with the aim of explaining in some cases the conflicting nature of in vivo and in vitro conclusions.