Nine acrylate/methacrylate esters were tested for the induction of mutations, aberrations, and micronuclei in cultured L5178Y mouse lymphoma cells without exogenous activation. With the exception of 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, and dicyclopentenyloxyethyl methacrylate which produced equivocal responses, the other seven compounds (2-hydroxyethyl acrylate, dicyclopentenyloxyethyl acrylate, tetraethylene glycol diacrylate, tetraethylene glycol dimethacrylate, trimethylolpropane triacrylate, trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate, and pentaerythritol triacrylate) produced positive genotoxic responses with different potencies. Primarily small-colony, TFT-resistant mutants were induced, suggesting a clastogenic mechanism that was supported by increased aberration and micronucleus frequencies. Generally, it was found that multifunctional compounds (esters with more than 1 functional vinyl group) required lower concentrations than monofunctional compounds to induce maximal cytotoxic, mutagenic, and clastogenic responses. In addition, acrylates were generally more potent than their corresponding methacrylates.