Assessment of genotoxic potential of ethylenediamine: in vitro and in vivo studies.

Ethylenediamine (EDA) was evaluated for potential genotoxic activity using a battery in vitro and in vivo mammalian tests. The tests employed were the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) gene mutation assay, the sister-chromatid exchange (SCE) test with CHO cells, unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) assays with primary rat hepatocytes and a dominant lethal study with Fischer 344 rats. EDA did not produce a positive, dose-related, mutagenic effect in either the CHO mutation assay or in the SCE test when evaluated both with and without the addition of a rat-liver S9 activation system. With hepatocytes, no positive effects of EDA upon UDS values were noted in 2 separate studies using either a scintillation counting procedure or an autoradiographic method to determine UDS activity. In a dominant lethal study, male rats fed for 23 weeks with dietary levels of EDA X 2HCl of 0, 0.05, 0.15 or 0.50 g/kg/day, and mated with 1 virgin female/week for 3 consecutive weeks, showed no dose-related or statistically significant effects upon fertility, total number of implantations/female, or the number of living and dead implants per female; marked effects upon the incidence of dominant lethal mutations were noted in the positive control group injected intraperitoneally with one dose of 0.25 mg/kg triethylenemelamine. We conclude that EDA was not genotoxic in the in vitro and in vivo mammalian test systems employed.