Genotoxicity of naturally occuring hydroxyanthraquinones

A variety of structurally related hydroxyanthraquinones (HA) were investigated in a test battery for the evaluation of mutagenicity and cell transforming activity. The tests were: the Salmonella typhimurium mutagenicity assay, the V79-HGPRT mutagenicity assay, the DNA-repair induction assay in primary rat hepatocytes an the in vitro tranformation of C3H/M2 mouse fibroblasts. In Salmonella, the most of the tested compounds were mutagenic in strain TA1537, but only a few were active in other strains. Among these were HA with a hydroxymethyl group, such as lucidin and aloe-emodin. In V79 cells, only HA with 2 hydroxy groups in the 1,3 positions or with a hydroxymethyl sidechain were mutagenic. The compounds found to be active in V79 cells were also active in the DNA-repair assay and in the C3H/M2 transformation assay. Thus, it appears that the genotoxicity of HA is dependent on certain structural requirements