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CYTOGENETIC STUDIES OF THREE TRIAZINE HERBICIDES II. IN VIVO MICRONUCLEUS STUDIES IN MOUSE BONE MARROW
Citation:
Kligerman, A D., C L. Doerr, A H. Tennant, AND B. Peng. CYTOGENETIC STUDIES OF THREE TRIAZINE HERBICIDES II. IN VIVO MICRONUCLEUS STUDIES IN MOUSE BONE MARROW. MUTAGEN RESEARCH 471(1-2):107-112, (2000).
Description:
Atrazine, simazine, and cyanazine are widely used preemergence and postemergence triazine herbicides that have made their way into the potable water supply of many agricultural communities. There are several contradictory studies in the literature. Our previous in vitro studies with human lymphocytes were designed to clarify this situation. The results clearly showed that atrazine, simazine, and cyanazine did not induce sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) or chromosome aberrations (CAs) up to the limits of solubility (in 0.5% dimethyl sulfoxide). To expand upon these results and to ensure that our in vitro findings could be replicated in an in vivo system, mice were treated with each triazine by two intraperitoneal injections, 24 h apart. Twenty-fours hours following the last injection, the animals were sacrificed, and the bone marrow removed for micronucleus (MN) analysis. Two to four independent trials were performed for MN analysis in polychromatic erythrocytes, and in some trials the spleen was removed, cultured, and analyzed for SCEs and CAs. None of the triazines investigated induced MN in the bone marrow, even at doses that caused significant bone marrow suppression and/or death. No increase in SCEs or CAs were seen in the cultured splenic lymphocyte. These results indicate that atrazine, simazine, and cyanazine are not genotoxic to mice following high dose in vivo exposures.