Kacinski B M, Mroczkowski Z, Rupp W D
Cancer Clin Trials. 1980 Spring;3(1):69-71.
The mutagenic and toxic effects of the nitroimidazole hypoxic cell sensitizer misonidazole (Ro-07-0582) have been studied in two strains of E. coli that differ in their abilities to repair DNA. It was found that even though the strain defective in excision repair was only slightly more sensitive than the original wild-type strain to killing by misonidazole, a large difference in the mutagenesis of the two strains was observed. While the wild-type strain was not mutated by misonidazole at any of the concentrations tested, the uvr strain was strongly mutated by the drug. This demonstrates the presence of a mutagenic lesion in DNA that is removed by excision repair.