The pattern of adriamycin-induced mutations in V-E5 Chinese hamster cells with chromosomal instability.

The V-E5 cell line, a mutant V79 Chinese hamster cell line, was used to study the effect of chromosomal instability on the spectrum of gene mutations and chromosome aberrations induced by the anthracycline antibiotic adriamycin (AM). V-E5 cells showed hypersensitivity to the cytotoxic effects of AM when compared to the parental cell line. AM caused both, chromosome-type aberrations and chromatid-type aberrations in V-E5 cells. Under the same experimental conditions, gene mutations were induced at the hprt locus which mainly represented deletion mutations. The spectrum of AM-induced chromosomal aberrations and gene mutations did not show any peculiarities in comparison to normal V79 cells. It is concluded that the genomic instability in V-E5 cells does not influence the pathways leading to chromosome aberrations and gene mutations after AM treatment.