Mutagenecity of various commercial and home-made Pyroligneous Acid products

Abstract

Attempts to evaluate the mutagenecity of twelve commercial and seven home-made pyroligneous acid (PA) products employing the umu test were unsuccessful because of the presence of anti-bacterial components in the products, which inhibited the growth of S. typhimurium, the bacteria used for the test. When the assay was conducted with diluted solutions of three selected products in the range 1∼10⁶ ppm, positive reactions were obtained in the presence of metabolic activator S-9 Mix, although the A₆₃₀ values obtained were too low to confirm their mutagenecity. However, when several PA products were subjected to the umu test after removal of the anti-bacterial components on Sep-pak tC18 column, they all showed a positive reaction for mutagenecity. The simple clean-up method employed in the present study appears useful for evaluations of mutagenecity of samples such as PA products that consist of multiple components.