Mutagenicity of Arsenic in Mammalian Cells: Role of Reactive Oxygen Species

Arsenite, the trivalent form of arsenic present in the environment, is a known human carcinogen that lacked mutagenic activity in bacterial and standard mammalian cell mutation assays. We show herein that when evaluated in an assay (ALcell assay), in which both intragenic and multilocus mutations ar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 1998-07, Vol.95 (14), p.8103-8107
Main Authors: Hei, Tom K., Liu, Su X., Waldren, Charles
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Arsenic
Arsenic - toxicity
Arsenites
Biological Sciences
Cells
Cellular biology
CHO Cells
Chromosomes, Human, Pair 11
Cricetinae
Genes
Genetic mutation
Human chromosomes
Humans
Hybrid Cells
Life Sciences (General)
Mammals
Mutagenicity
Mutagenicity Tests
Mutagens
Mutation
Mutation - drug effects
Polymerase chain reaction
Reactive Oxygen Species
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Arsenite, the trivalent form of arsenic present in the environment, is a known human carcinogen that lacked mutagenic activity in bacterial and standard mammalian cell mutation assays. We show herein that when evaluated in an assay (ALcell assay), in which both intragenic and multilocus mutations are detectable, that arsenite is in fact a strong dose-dependent mutagen and that it induces mostly large deletion mutations. Cotreatment of cells with the oxygen radical scavenger dimethyl sulfoxide significantly reduces the mutagenicity of arsenite. Thus, the carcinogenicity of arsenite can be explained at least in part by it being a mutagen that depends on reactive oxygen species for its activity.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.95.14.8103