“…The putative reactive species, N-acetoxy-4-aminobiphenyl (N-OAc-ABP) exemplified in the case of the bladder carcinogen ABP, could be formed by N-deacetylation of N-acetoxy-4-acetylaminobiphenyl (N-OAc-AABP) or by O-acetylation of N-hydroxy-4-aminobiphenyl (N-OH-ABP) catalyzed by specific acyltransferases [Bartsch et al, 1973;Flammang et al, 1986;Kato and Yamazoe, 1988;Shinohara et al, 1986;Yamada et al, 19881. Evidence for the role of these acetylation and deacetylation reactions in mutagenesis and carcinogenesis comes from studies on biochemical mechanisms [Lower and Bryan, 1973;King and Glowinski, 1983;Weber and Hein 19851, DNA repair synthesis [Wang et al, 19881, and on mutagenicity [Saito et al, 1983;Weeks et al, 1978;Wirth and Thorgeirsson, 19811. Although the occurrence of these acyltransferase(s) has been known, which of these enzymes plays a determinate role in susceptibility to bladder carcinogenesis induced by arylamines and arylacetamides is currently not understood. This is partly because of the occurrence of various forms of acyl transferase(s), some which exhibit different substrate specificities, and their distribution varies between different tissues and between different experimental species [Glowinski et al, 1980;Hosokawa et al, 1990;Jarvinen et al, 1971;Mentlein and Heymann, 1984;Smith and Hanna, 1986;Wang et al, 1991 1.…”