The proportions of mutagens among chemicals in commerce.

It has been estimated that there are approximately 80,000 chemicals in commerce. Thus, it is not possible to test all these substances for mutagenicity and carcinogenicity; it is possible, however, to test or make estimates from selected subsets of these chemicals. For example, in the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), 35% of the chemicals tested for mutagenicity in Salmonella were positive, as were 52% of the chemicals tested for carcinogenicity in rodents. In contrast, in the U.S. EPA Gene-Tox database, the proportions of chemicals that are Salmonella mutagens is 56%. These and other databases may be biased toward positive responses because they generally have been developed to look at specific structural or use classes of chemicals or chemicals suspected of genetic or carcinogenic activity. To address the question of the proportions of mutagens among all chemicals in commerce, a database of 100 chemicals was created from a random selection of chemicals in commerce. These chemicals were tested for mutagenicity in Salmonella and 22% were mutagenic. The mutagenicity of the 46 highest U.S. production organic chemicals was also compiled; 20% were mutagenic. These values provide a more accurate estimate of the proportions of mutagens among chemicals in commerce than can be derived from published mutagenicity databases.

[1]  A. Tenenbein.  A Double Sampling Scheme for Estimating from Binomial Data with Misclassifications , 1970 .

[2]  D. Brusick,et al.  The Salmonella typhimurium/mammalian microsomal assay. A report of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Gene-Tox Program. , 1986, Mutation research.

[3]  D. Mebs,et al.  Toxicity Testing. Strategies to Determine Needs and Priorities: U.S. National Toxicology Program. 382 pp. Washington, DC: National Academy Press (1984) , 1987 .

[4]  L. Bernstein,et al.  Summary of carcinogenic potency and positivity for 492 rodent carcinogens in the carcinogenic potency database. , 1989, Environmental health perspectives.

[5]  Errol Zeiger,et al.  Evaluation of four in vitro genetic toxicity tests for predicting rodent carcinogenicity: Confirmation of earlier results with 41 additional chemicals , 1990, Environmental and molecular mutagenesis.

[6]  E. Zeiger,et al.  Salmonella mutagenicity tests: V. Results from the testing of 311 chemicals , 1992, Environmental and molecular mutagenesis.

[7]  H. Zitzelsberger,et al.  Centromere detection in vinblastine‐ and radiation‐induced micronuclei of cytokinesis‐blocked mouse cells by using in situ hybridization with a mouse gamma (Major) satellite DNA probe , 1992, Environmental and molecular mutagenesis.

[8]  E. Zeiger,et al.  Handbook of Carcinogenic Potency and Genotoxicity Databases , 1996 .

[9]  T Sofuni,et al.  Evaluation of the rodent micronucleus assay in the screening of IARC carcinogens (groups 1, 2A and 2B) the summary report of the 6th collaborative study by CSGMT/JEMS MMS. Collaborative Study of the Micronucleus Group Test. Mammalian Mutagenicity Study Group. , 1997, Mutation research.

[10]  E Zeiger,et al.  Identification of rodent carcinogens and noncarcinogens using genetic toxicity tests: premises, promises, and performance. , 1998, Regulatory toxicology and pharmacology : RTP.