The metabolism of drugs and carcinogens in isolated subcellular fractions of Drosophila melanogaster. I. Activation of vinyl chloride, 2-aminoanthracene and benzo[a]pyrene as measured by mutagenic effects in Salmonella typhimurium.

The capacity of microsomal fractions from different Drosophila strains to activate three premutagens, 2-aminoanthracene (2-AA), vinyl chloride (VCM) and benzo[a]pyrene (BP) was investigated, using Salmonella typhimurium as the indicator organism. A significant increase in the mutation response in the Salmonella test system was obtained with all three substances in the presence of a metabolizing system (S9) from Drosophila larvae. 2-AA was converted to highly mutagenic metabolite(s) by the Drosophila S9 and the mutagenic effect was further increased after pretreatment with Aroclor 1254 (PCB) or beta-naphthoflavone (BNF). BP had only marginal mutagenic effects, causing less than a 2-fold increase in the number of mutants over the control. The data indicate that the metabolic conversion of BP is different in the Drosophila as compared to the rat liver microsomal fraction. In accordance with mutagenic data on Drosophila in vivo, vinyl chloride was a fairly weak mutagen in this Drosophila/Salmonella in vitro system.