Mutagenic and toxic effects of ruthenium.

Selected platinum and ruthenium complexes were tested for their ability to cause Salmonella typhimurium strains TA98 and TA100 to revert to histidine independence. The results indicate that ruthenium compounds are capable of reverting both strains while cis-Cl2(NH3)2Pt primarily causes reversions in strain TA100. In addition, cis-platinum is an order of magnitude more mutagenic and toxic than are the ruthenium complexes. Selected compounds were also tested for their ability to induce the bacterial SOS system in the Bacillus subtilis Comptest. In this system, cis-platinum similarly showed greater inducing ability than did the ruthenium complexes. These results also demonstrated that the nature of the sixth ligand in the ruthenium compounds has a significant effect on the mutagenic capacity of these agents.