A comparative study of five nitro musk compounds for genotoxicity in the SOS chromotest and Salmonella mutagenicity.

Five nitro musk compounds widely used in cosmetics and detergents were examined for DNA-damaging and mutation-inducing properties. For this purpose two short-time assays were used, the SOS chromotest and the Salmonella/mammalian microsome test. Musk ambrette showed mutagenicity in Salmonella typhimurium TA 100 requiring metabolic activation by rat liver postmitochondrial supernatant (S9) but it lacked mutagenicity in the absence of S9 and genotoxicity in the SOS chromotest. Musk xylene, musk ketone, musk moskene and musk tibetene showed neither mutagenicity nor genotoxicity in the presence and absence of S9.