Increment of sister chromatid exchange frequencies (SCE) due to epichlorohydrin (ECH) in vitro treatment in human lymphocytes

Although several studies have examined the effects on health of exposure to epichlorohydrin (ECH) through normal industrial operations and production, there is still considerable interest in its potential harmful effects on h umans. The aim of the present study was to evaluate ECH effects in vitro th rough controlled investigations by using sister chromatid exchange (SCE), m icronucleus (MN), and chromosome aberrations (CA) as the test battery. Cult ures for cytogenetic tests were set up from blood samples of four healthy n on-smoking and three smoking males. The experiments were performed using fo ur different concentrations: 10(-10) M, 10(-8) M, 10(-6) M, and 10(-4) M, o f ECH in DMSO. Analysis of variance showed that concentrations of ECH had s ignificant effects on SCE/cell frequencies in the lymphocyte cultures of al l donors (F= 100.25, P<0.001). We were unable to find any evidence of signi ficant increases in CA and MN frequencies in ECH-treated lymphocyte culture s with respect to the controls Teratogenesis Carcinog. Mutagen. 20:313-320, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.