Abstract
Among short-term in vitro genotoxicity assays, micronucleus assays are rapid, inexpensive, and less labor-intensive system. We have undertaken a comparative study of sensitivity of cigarette smoke condensate(CSC) by general micronucleus(MN) assay and cytokinesis-block micronucleus(CBMN) assay. In this study, V79 Chinese hamster cells were employed to evaluate and compare the genotoxicity of CSC of Kentucky Reference Cigarette 2R4F by 2 kinds of in vitro MN assay methods. To determine the optimum concentration of cytochalasin B(CYB) to obtain the maximal number of binucleated cells for CBMN assay, triplicate cultures of growing cells were treated with CYB for 15 h. CYB treatments caused a concentration-dependent increase in cytotoxicity($1\~4{\mu}g/mL$) and proportion($0.25\~1\;{\mu}g/mL$) of binucleated cells. These data suggested that 1 ug/mL of CYB is as an optimum dose for CBMN assay in binucleated V79 cells. Short treatment(4 h) of CSC induced a micronucleated cells with a concentration-dependent response in the presence or absence of CYB, but CSC-induced MNs were weakened when S9 was present. Long treatments(19 h) of CSC also induced a significant increase MN formation with a concentration-dependent response. At a concentration of 75 ${mu}g/mL$, the MN cell frequencies of general MN assay and CBMN assay were $6.5\%\;and\;11.7\%$, respectively. Linear regression analysis revealed a good correlation in CBMN assay between a concentration of CSC and MN cell frequency. All these data indicated that CBMN assay is more sensitive to the induction CSC-induced MN than general MN assay.