Investigating the sources of the mutagenic activity found in a river using the Salmonella assay and different water extraction procedures

Evaluation of the genotoxicity of river sediments from industrialized and unaffected areas using a battery of short‐term bioassays

“…DOI 10.1002/em strains indicated that nitroarenes and, to a lower extent, aromatic amines, were mainly responsible for the global mutagenic activity of sediments. The contribution of N-containing aromatic compounds in the mutagenic potential of river sediments has been previously reported for various aquatic environments such as Lake Ontario (Canada) [Marvin et al, 2000], Po river (Italy) [Viganò et al, 2001], and Cristais river (Brazil) [De Aragão Umbuzeiro et al, 2004]. Among these compounds, nitroarenes include a large class of molecules found in particulate emissions from combustion sources such as diesel exhausts.…”

“…Thus, during the past 25 years, the distribution of sedimentary PAHs has been well documented in industrialized countries and their relation to industrial or urban pollution is well established, with PAH concentrations ranging from 10 lg kg 21 dw in sites distant from industrial and/or urban locations to more than 1,000 mg kg 21 dw in highly industrialized regions [Chen and White, 2004;Poster et al, 2006;Xu et al, 2007]. However, two studies conducted to assess the genotoxic hazard of aquatic environments demonstrated that PAHs accounted for a minor part in the mutagenic activity of sediments [Vigano et al, 2002;De Aragão Umbuzeiro et al, 2004]. Both studies focused on the limitations of predicting risk only based on chemical analysis and suggested that bioassays were essential tools to evaluate the genotoxic hazard of environmental pollution and to identify the areas at risk.…”

“…The Salmonella tester strains TA98 and TA100 are typically used in the presence of a metabolic activation mixture (S9) to assess the mutagenic activity of carcinogenic PAHs [Marvin et al, 2000;Chen and White, 2004]. However, the addition of other strains such as YG1041 and YG1042 [De Aragão Umbuzeiro et al, 2004], YG1020, YG1021, YG1024, YG1025, YG1026, and YG1029 [Watanabe et al, 1989;Marvin et al, 1993], which are sensitive to different class of mutagens, has demonstrated that nitroarenes (NAs) and aromatic amines (AAs) contributed for a significant part to the genotoxic potential of sediments, and illustrated the difficulty of estimating their overall mutagenicities.…”

Organic Pollution and Genotoxicity of Sediments of the Palun Marshes (Berre Lagoon, France)

“…The genotoxicity of PAHs such as BaP has been well established, and their presence in sediments has been shown to induce positive responses in the Salmonella mutagenicity assay (Chen and White, 2004). However, a weak relationship could be established between these mutagenic activities and the corresponding PAHs concentrations (Chen and White, 2004; De Aragão Umbuzeiro et al, 2004; Marvin et al, 2000). Results observed in the present study confirmed these previously published data.…”

“…These environmental contaminants have been shown to display a strong mutagenicity in the YG1041 strain, which contains enhanced nitroreductase and O ‐acetyl transferase activities (Ohe and Nukaya, 1996; Hagiwara et al, 1993). Since nitroarenes are 100‐ to 1000‐fold more mutagenic than PAHs, their contribution in the mutagenic potencies of river sediments has been hypothesized for various aquatic environments such as Lake Ontario, Canada (Marvin et al, 2000), Po River, Italy (Viganò et al, 2001), and Cristais River, Brazil (De Aragão Umbuzeiro et al, 2004). Although the presence of nitrated compounds such as 1‐NP, 6‐nitrochrysene, and 6‐nitrobenzo[ a ]pyrene has been reported (Chen and White, 2004) in various studies, no correlation could be observed between their concentrations in the sediment extracts and the corresponding mutagenic activities (Ohe and Nukaya, 1996; Watanabe et al, 2005).…”