Waskell L
Mutat Res. 1978 May;57(2):141-53. doi: 10.1016/0027-5107(78)90261-0.
The commonly used volatile anesthetics, several of their metabolites, and drugs frequently employed by the anesthesiologist were screened for mutagenicity in the Salmonella/rat-liver microsomal assay system developed by Dr. B. Ames and his colleagues. Chloral hydrate, both a sedative and metabolite of trichloroethylene, was found to be weakly mutagenic. Other compounds testing including halothane, isoflurane, methoxyflurane, diazepam and chlordiazepoxide were not mutagenic. Non-volatile compounds were tested for their ability to inhibit growth of bacterial strains with decreased capacity to repair damaged DNA. None of the compounds tested inhibited the growth of DNA-repair-deficient strains relative to a strain with normal DNA-repair. Halothane and trilene were tested for direct interaction with DNA; under the experimental conditions employed, no direct interaction of these compounds and DNA could be detected.
