Aroclor 1254 pretreatment effects on DNA repair in rat hepatocytes elicited by in vivo or in vitro exposure to various chemicals.

Inducers of liver mixed function oxidase (MFO) activities have profound effects on the genotoxicity of substances that undergo metabolic activation by the MFO system. The polychlorinated biphenyl mixture Aroclor 1254 is a broad-spectrum inducer of liver MFO activities that has been employed as a pretreatment to augment the metabolic activation capabilities of rat liver fractions used in a number of short-term tests for genotoxicity, including the Ames Salmonella/bacterial mutagenicity assay. The present study was designed to characterize the effects of Aroclor pretreatment of rats on the DNA repair responses elicited by various chemicals in the in vitro hepatocyte primary culture/DNA repair (HPC/DR) assay as well as the in vivo/in vitro HPC/DR assay. The amount of DNA repair produced in vitro by diethylnitrosamine (DEN), benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P), 3-methylcholanthrene (3-MC), 2-acetylaminofluorene (2-AAF), o-aminoazotoluene (o-AT), and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) was significantly greater in hepatocytes derived from Aroclor-pretreated rats than in control rat hepatocytes; in vitro responses to dimethylnitrosamine (DMN), 7,12-dimethylbenzanthracene (DMBA), benzidine (BZ), and 2-naphthylamine (2-NA) were not significantly affected by Aroclor pretreatment. DNA repair elicited by the direct-acting alkylating agents methyl methanesulfonate and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine was also not increased by Aroclor pretreatment, which indicated that Aroclor does not exert a general stimulatory effect on the hepatocellular DNA repair capacity. Therefore, the pretreatment-related potentiation of DNA repair observed for 6 out of 12 compounds tested in vitro was considered to be due to enhanced metabolic activation. These results suggested that pretreatment with Aroclor may increase the sensitivity of the in vitro HPC/DR assay to certain compounds. In contrast, Aroclor pretreatment had little effect on the amount of hepatocellular DNA repair elicited by in vivo administration of DMN, DEN, o-AT, 2-AAF, 3-MC, or AFB1, which indicated that this pretreatment regimen may have little utility for improving the sensitivity of the in vivo/in vitro HPC/DR assay.