MUTAGENICITY OF SOME INDIAN COMMERCIAL ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS

Different commercial brands of country liquors from three states of In dia (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar) were tested in the Ames te st using bacterial strains S. typhimurium TA 98 and TA 100 with and wi thout metabolic activation. The commercial brands tested from Andhra P radesh were nonmutagenic while those from Maharashtra and Bihar were m utagenic both with and without metabolic activation. Two brands of Mah arashtra country liquors were further tested in a mammalian test syste m and were found to induce significantly higher numbers of micronuclei in Swiss mouse bone marrow cells in a dose-dependent manner.