Use of a newly developed tester strain Salmonella typhimurium NM2009 for the study of metabolic activation of carcinogenic aromatic amines by rat liver microsomal cytochrome P-450 enzymes.

Using an O-acetyltransferase-overexpressing strain Salmonella typhimurium NM2009 we measured the activities for metabolic activation of several carcinogenic arylamines to genotoxic products by rat liver microsomal cytochrome P-450 enzymes, and compared them with the activities obtained in the original tester strain Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002 or the O-acetyltransferase-defective strain Salmonella typhimurium NM2000. Since all of the tester strains had introduced the umuC'-'lacZ gene, we could detect the genotoxic activities by measuring bacterial beta-galactosidase activity resulting from the DNA damage. In the O-acetyltransferase-defective strain NM2000 most of the arylamines tested showed weak responses in inducing umu gene expression after metabolic activation by liver microsomes. The strain NM2009, on the other hand, was found to be highly sensitive towards a variety of aromatic amines, and these activities were greater than those seen in the original tester strain S. typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002. The chemicals which marked responses in strain NM2009 include 2-aminoanthracene, 6-aminochrysene, 2-aminofluorene, 2-acetylaminofluorene, 3-methoxy-4-aminoazobenzene, O-aminoazotoluene, Glu-P-1, Trp-P-2, A alpha C, MeA alpha C, MeIQ, MeIQx and IQ. Of these procarcinogens tested MeIQ, MeIQx and IQ also showed strong cytotoxic effects in S. typhimurium NM2009 after metabolic activation by liver microsomes. Only PhIP was the substrate showing similar responses in strains TA1535/pSK1002 and NM2009. The results with the reconstituted monooxygenase system containing purified cytochrome P-450 enzymes support the above findings obtained with the liver microsomal enzyme system. Thus, the usefulness of the newly developed strain NM2009 for the detection of reactive metabolites of several carcinogenic aromatic amines after metabolism by the liver microsomal cytochrome P-450-linked monooxygenase system has been ascertained.