Studies on the metabolic activation of diethanolnitrosamine in animal-mediated and in vitro assays using Escherichia coli K-12 343/113 as an indicator.

The mutagenic activity of diethanolnitrosamine (NDELA), a carcinogenic compound which leads to inconsistent results in standard in vitro procedures was tested in vitro and in animal-mediated assays with the indicator strain Escherichia coli (E. coli) K-12 343/113. This strain allows the simultaneous detection of forward and back mutations arising in several genes of the E. coli chromosome. In animal-mediated assays in which mice were used as hosts for i.v. injected E. coli indicator cells, s.c. application of NDELA induced a dose dependent increase of galactose fermenting mutants in cells recovered from the livers of animals exposed for 3 h to the mutagen. Comparison with results obtained with diethylnitrosamine (DENA) in the same test system revealed that the two compounds apparently cause different types of mutagenic lesions. Induction of arg+ mutations by DENA and several other aliphatic nitrosamines is mainly due to base pair substitutions, whereas NDELA is rather mutagenic in the galRs system. This latter system is, in addition, sensitive to frameshifts and deletions. These differences in mutagenic specificity suggest that NDELA and DENA, although structurally closely related, are activated via different molecular mechanisms. In fact, evidence is accumulating that alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) could be involved in the activation of NDELA. On the other hand, the effective mutagenesis of NDELA obtained in vitro with E. coli upon addition of rat liver microsomal fraction would not be expected if ADH is involved in the activation since the S-9 Mix used in the present experiments was devoid of cofactors (NAD, NADP), necessary to accomplish oxidation by ADH. Therefore, further in vivo studies were performed, in which pyrazole, a potent blocker of ADH, was administered prior (1 and 24 h) to the injection of the mutagen. The observation that a dose dependent increase of mutants in the liver (and to a lower extent in the spleens) of treated animals takes place under conditions in which ADH activity is blocked, whereas several microsomal enzymes are stimulated, indicated that besides oxidation of NDELA by ADH other metabolic activation pathways are involved. Apparently enzymes contained in the liver homogenate, possibly NADPH dependent enzymes of the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system, play an important role in the formation of mutagenic metabolites of NDELA.