Search

In the last few years there has been much concern about the problem connected to the exposure to mutagens present in the environment of industrialized countries. Particularly, the mutagenic activity of airborne particulate matter has been studied by many investigators and correlated with elevated lung cancer mortality rates. In most cases the Salmonella typhimurium/microsome test has been used for these studies. This short-term test, which is the most validated among the short-term genotoxicity tests, provides an important indication on the carcinogenic potential of environmental pollutants. That are complex mixtures containing a wide variety of compounds potentially capable of causing additive, antagonistic or synergistic genotoxic response in living organisms. Several studies have suggested that diverse factors, such as traffic and meteorological conditions, could affect the levels of pollutants in the air. In our work, we have investigated three different areas in Pisa, where the intensity and the kind of the road traffic were different. Airborne particles have been collected during a year and the genotoxic activity has been studied using TA98 and TA100 strains of Salmonella typhimurium. 20 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs.

Mytilus galloprovincialis has a hepatopancreatic monooxygenase activity cytochrome P450-dependent. The present paper studies the induction of this activity in the hepatopancreatic microsomes after treatment of M. galloprovincialis with Na-phenobarbital. Mussels were collected from the Gulf of La Spezia in 1985. We measured the increase in levels of cytochrome P450, b5, and P420 and the 7-ethoxycoumarin deethylase activity. Furthermore, the fraction of mouse liver was replaced by the correspondent mussels' hepatopancreatic fraction in the yeast genotoxicity test to determine the ability of mussels to biotransform cyclophosphamide and styrene oxide. The results suggest that edible mussels are capable of detoxicating styrene oxide but not of bioactivating cyclophosphamide.

Incineration of industrial and urban waste materials is an important problem for the environmental contamination and therefore for human health. Environmental contaminants spread by urban incinerators can contain a complex mixture of toxic compounds such as dioxin, benzofurans, alogenate acids. It is important to evaluate the genetic damage induced by complex mixtures widespread in the environment. In the present work, the genotoxic activity of samples obtained from the urban incinerator of Florence was analyzed. The results were compared with those obtained with samples drawn from the urban Snamprogetti incinerator of Schio (Vicenza), where halogenated acids contained in the smoke are neutralized with the lime wash in a salification column. Samples were tested using prokaryotic (Salmonella typhimurium TA98, TA100 and TA102 strains) and eukaryotic (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, D7 strain) microorganisms. These systems permit one to obtain rapid, reproducible and reliable results in order to evaluate the genotoxic activity of substances present in the environment.