Post-treatment with caffeine and the induction of gene mutations by ultraviolet irradiation and ethyl methanesulphonate in V-79 Chinese hamster cells in culture.

The effect of caffeine on V-79 Chinese hamster cells after ultraviolet irradiation or treated with ethyl methanesulphonate was investigated. Caffeine strongly potentiated the killing of both agents, but it had no effect on the induction of mutations at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase locus. The results are consistent with the notion that caffeine slows down an error-prone post-replicative repair mechanism without changing the mutation frequency.