Effects of retinoids on plating efficiency, sister-chromatid exchange (SCE) and mitomycin-C-induced SCE in cultured Chinese hamster cells.

The effects of 5 retinoids, namely, all-trans-retinol (ROL), all-trans-retinoic acid (RA), all-trans-retinal (RAL), all-trans-retinyl acetate (RAc), and Ro. 10-9359-TMMP ethyl retinoate on plating efficiency, sister-chromatid exchange (SCE) and on mitomycin-C (MMC)-induced SCE were studied in Chinese hamster V79 cells. All the retinoids caused reduction of plating efficiency in a dose-dependent manner but the degree of plating efficiency reduction varied considerably among the retinoids studies. RAL was the most potent reducer of plating efficiency and this was followed in decreasing order by ROL, RAc, RA and Ro. 10-9359. For the effect of various doses of retinoids on SCE, it was clearly demonstrated that addition of each of the 5 retinoids to exponentially growing V79 cells had no significant effect on SCE frequency as compared to the controls. Besides this, these compounds did not alter DCS frequency induced by MMC.