[Comparative effectiveness of different tests to determine the mutagenicity of certain factors in mammals. II. Frequency of anomalous sperm head in mice exposed to different factors].

The effect of a number of chemical and physical agents (cyclophosphamide (CTX) - 50, 100 and 300 mg/kg; N-nitroso-N-methylurea (NMU) - 50 mg/kg; N-nitrosomorpholine (NM) - 50 and 150 mg/kg; CdCl2 - 1, 2 and 4 mg/kg; ZnCl2 - 15 mg/kg; microwaves and gamma-rays 60Co on the frequency of abnormal sperm heads (ASH) in mouse F1 hybrids (C57BL X CBA) was studied. The agents possessing mutagenicity in the dominant lethal mutations (DLM) and bone marrow chromosome aberrations assay (CTX, NMU and gamma-rays) significantly increased the ASH frequency within 35 days after the treatment at maximum doses. CdCl2 inducing no mutagenic effect in the DLM test, increased the ASH frequency too. The increase in the ASH frequency all cases was accompanied by a reduction of the testicular weight and an increase in preimplantation losses and a reduction of the level of efficient matings when premeiotic germ cells were treated. This indicates that the occurrence of ASH may be due not only to the mutagenic but also cytolytic or/and cytotoxic effects of the compounds. The ASH test can be used for mutagenicity prescreening of different factors provided their doses are high enough.