Genetic toxicity of several antihypertensive drugs possessing a hydrazine group.

Mutagenicity and genotoxicity of antihypertensive drugs, ecarazine, budralazine, benzerazide, and carbidopa were compared with those of hydralazine whose genetic toxicity and carcinogenicity were well established. Ecarazine and budralazine as well as hydralazine showed apparent mutagenicity in Salmonella/microsome test using a strain TA 100 and weak mutagenicity in strains TA 97 and 2637. Benzerazide and carbidopa showed merely weak mutagenicity in TA 100. None of tested drugs except hydralazine exerted any positive result in hepatocyte primary culture (HPC)/DNA repair test, indicating no genotoxic activity of these hydrazine drugs.