Mutagenicity and chemical analysis of aliphatic and aromatic fractions of Prudhoe Bay crude oil and fuel oil no. 2.

The mutagenicity of aliphatic (fraction 1), one- to three-ring aromatic (fraction 3), and four- to five-ring aromatic (fraction 4) fractions of Prudhoe Bay crude oil and of a fuel oil no. 2 was investigated with a battery of in vitro mammalian and microbial assays. Chemical analysis of the fractions was carried out by gas capillary chromatography-mass spectrometry. In the Salmonella/mammalian microsome test, both first fractions were negative, while fraction 3 of Prudhoe Bay crude and fraction 4 of both oils exhibited mutagenic activity with metabolic activation. In Chinese hamster ovary cells, all of the aromatic fractions, in the presence of metabolic activation, caused a significant increase in the number of sister chromatid exchanges. Chromosome aberrations were not caused by any of the aromatic fractions; however, fraction 3 of fuel oil no. 2 induced endoreduplication in the presence of metabolic activation.