An in vivo model for testing genotoxicity of environmental fibre-associated nitroarenes.

The environmental carcinogens nitroarenes are frequently adsorbed by asbestos fibres. An effective dose of 1-nitropyrene was studied in vivo. The mutagenic pattern of excreted urine of orally and intraperitoneally exposed rats was tested by the Ames mutagenicity assay. The characteristics of detected mutagenicity proved to be different in the two routes of exposure. TA 100 mutagenicity was only detected following i.p. exposure, while TA 98 revertant frequencies were increased significantly only after deconjugation, in both groups. Since environmental asbestos exposure involves carcinogenic effects of adsorbed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, this animal model provides a useful tool for testing fibre-associated nitroarenes, in both mechanistic and risk assessment studies.