Mutagenicity in V79 Chinese hamster cells of n-alkanals produced by lipid peroxidation

The mutagenicity for mammalian cells of five n-alkanals producedby lipid peroxidation was tested in V79 Chinese hamster lungcells either at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferaselocus as resistance to 6-thioguanine or at the Na/K ATPase locusas resistance to ouabain. The results show that propanal, butanal,pentanal and hexanal induced a dose-dependent increase in thefrequency over controls of both 6-thioguanine- and ouabain-resistantmutants at concentrations ranging from 3 to 30 mM. With nonanalthe same effects were observed with concentrations of 0.1–0.3mM.