Mutation linked to additive

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 12

Mutation linked to additive

(By HAROLD M. SI A minor additive in leaded petrol has been found to produce adverse genetic effects in mice. The chemical is called trimethylphosphate. It is used to control lead fouling of spark plugs and also has some industrial uses, according to Dr Samuel S. Epstein, of the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, Boston. He said that adverse genetic effects of the chemical had been found by two types of research with the laboratory animals. While there is no evidence that the additive is harmful to man, Dr Epstein mentioned the studies as an indication of the need to conduct tests of possible genetic effects in chemicals to which humans are widely exposed in the environment. Some concern

At an informal news conference after his presentation at a scientific meeting here, Dr Epstein said it should be a matter of some concern when any chemical widely distributed in the environment was found capable of causing mutagenjc effects in any animal species even though there was ho direct evidence concerning man. The discovery concerning the fuel additive, he said, raises the possibility that there may be mutagenic chemicals in photo-chemical smog, the kind of smog produced by the action of light on the combustion products of gasoline and other substances.

A mutagenic effect is one that causes a mutation or other change in the genetic material of living cells on whois animals or plants.

iCHMECK, JUN.) Estimates by industry indicate that there is somewhat less than one onehundredth of an ounce of trimethyphosphate in a gallon of leaded petrol and that probably a little of this passes into the exhaust without being broken down. Early deaths Dr Epstein and his research team in Boston first found the effects of the additive in a project in which they were screening about 150 chemicals for possible mutagenic effects. They fed, or injected, small amounts of each chemical in adult male mice and then mated the animals with fertile females. The result, when the fuel additive was used, was an abnormally high percentage of early deaths among the unborn foetal mice. This is taken as evidence of a genetic effect because the females were not exposed to the chemicals at all. The

only possible source of the ill-effect on the foetal mice was damage to the germ cells of the males. Dr Epstein and three coauthors, Willa Bass, Elsie Arnold and Yvonne Bishop, all of the Boston institution, reported this much of the evidence several months ago in "Science,” weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. More recently, Dr Epstein said, Dr Use Adler, another member of his group, has found that the same chemical can - cause breakage of chromosomes in cells of mouse bone marrow. The chromosomes are the thread-

like structures in living cells that carry and transmit the genetic message. Copyright “New York Times” News Service.