Genotoxicity of multifunctional acrylates in the Salmonella/mammalian-microsome assay and mouse lymphoma TK+/-assay.

Multifunctional acrylates are being used increasingly as replacements for solvents, and occupational and general population exposure to this structural class is expanding. Four multifunctional acrylates and acrylic acid were tested for mutagenicity in the Salmonella typhimurium and mouse lymphoma L5178Y TK+/-assays. In the Salmonella assay, two of the compounds (trimethylolpropane triacrylate and trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate) showed weakly positive results with a single tester strain (TA1535) in the presence of hamster liver S9; the other three compounds were negative. All five compounds were negative in the Salmonella assay without S9 activation. In the mouse lymphoma assay, two of the compounds (acrylic acid and ethylene glycol diacrylate) were positive in both the presence and the absence of S9, one compound was positive only in the presence of S9 (ethylene glycol dimethacrylate), and one compound was positive only in the absence of S9 (trimethylolpropane triacrylate).