The mutagenic and toxic effects of bleomycin and trifluoperazine in Drosophila melanogaster

The mutagenic and toxic effects of trifluoperazine and bleomycin on Drosoph ila were investigated in the progenies of males injected with 0.2 mu l of b leomycin and/or trifluoperazine. The Muller-5 method was used to study the induction of complete- and mosaic-sex-linked recessive lethals induced by 0 .1 mu g/ml bleomycin and/or 0.1 mM trifluoperazine in the five successive b roods, mainly representing the different stages of spermatogenesis. Trifluoperazine increased the induction rate of sex-linked recessive mutati ons above the spontaneous rates of the control, but these increases were no t statistically significant at the 5% level(27) in any of the five differen t broods. Contrary to trifluoperazine, bleomycin significantly (5% level)(2 7) increased the induction rate of the complete sex-linked recessive lethal s over those of the control in the meiotic and premeiotic broods C and D, a nd the meiotic brood E. As with the separate treatment with bleomycin, the frequencies of the complete sex-linked recessive lethals induced by the sim ultaneous combination treatment of 0.1 mu g/ml bleomycin and 0.1 mM trifluo perazine were significantly higher than those of the control at the 5%(27) level, only in the meiotic and premeiotic broods, but they were not signifi cantly higher than those induced by bleomycin treatment alone(19). Treatments with 0.1mM trifluoperazine enhanced the toxicity, sterility and the number of mutated clusters induced by 0.1mM bleomycin but did not signi ficantly increase the rates of induced lethals over the additive effects of both drugs in the meiotic and premeiotic stages, suggesting no potentiatio n effects for trifluoperazine over those of bleomycin in Drosophila. Higher concentrations of the two drugs could not be used dire to their high toxic ity and sterility effects.