Genotoxicity of industrial effluents, river waters, and their fractions using the Ames test and in vitro cytogenetic assay.

Total and fractionated organic extracts from industrial effluents and Labe river water were tested for mutagenicity using the Ames test with TA98 strain and its YG derivatives (YG1021, YG1024 and YG1041) and cytogenetic analysis with human peripheral lymphocytes in vitro. The bacterial mutagenicity results showed a dose-dependent increase in numbers of TA98 revertants (10(5)) with effluent extracts and lower, but still significant, increase (10(3)) with river water extracts 6 km downstream. The further increase of YG revertants indicates the possible presence of nitroarenes and aromatic amines in the tested samples. In fractionated samples the significant mutagenicity was detected in two-polar acidic and polar basic-fractions, but the numbers of revertants in all effluent fractions were about one order of magnitude lower compared with total extracts results. The cytogenetic effect in human peripheral lymphocytes in vitro was not significant. The increase in chromosomal aberrations was not clearly dose-dependent and may reflect more the combination of toxic and clastogenic effects.