Diesel soot: Mutation measurements in bacterial and human cells

• Published in: Environment international 1981, Vol.5 (4), p.281-284
• Main Authors: Liber, H.L., Andon, B.M., Hites, R.A., Thilly, W.G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0160-4120; 1873-6750
• DOI: 10.1016/0160-4120(81)90071-4

Both hot pipe and dilution chamber samples of the exhaust from a diesel (Oldsmobile 350) engine have been collected, extracted with methylene chloride and those extracts have been tested for mutagenicity in forward mutation assays in human lymphoblasts and S. typhimurium. In the absence of a metabolic activation system, the extract was significantly mutagenic to the bacteria in the range of 0 to 30 μg/ml, but introduced no mutations in human cells at concentrations up to 200 μg/ml under the same conditions of assay medium. However, when assayed in the presence of a postmitochondrial supernatant derived from rat liver, the the soot extracts were significantly mutagenic to both bacteria and human cells in the range of 50–100 μg/ml. Fractionation of the soot extract on the basis of polarity by sequential elution from a silicic acid column permitted concentration of the mutagenic activity in the alkane/toluene eluate, as determined by bacterial assays. Preliminary characterization of this fraction and preliminary studies of pure compounds leads us to suspect the alkyl substituted phenanthrenes as representing at least a significant fraction of the mutagenic activity of this alkane/toluene eluate.