Effect of Synthetic Surfactants on the Activity of Mutagens

계면활성제가 돌연변이원성 물질의 활성에 미치는 영향

Recently, concerns of water pollution and health risks caused by synthetic detergents have emerged, as the use of various detergents has increased It has been suggested that some surfactants are cocarcinogens. The surfactants tested were linear alkylbenzene sulfonate, sodium lauryl sulfate, polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleat (tween 80), and the mutagens were 1-nitropyrene, N -methyl- N'-nitro-N -nitrosoguanidine, benzo (a) pyrene, and aflatoxin B$_1$. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of surfactants on the activity of mytagens using the Ames mutagenic assay with Salmonella typhimurium TA98, TA100. The results were summarized as follows: 1. The surfactants have no mutagenic activity of themselves. 2. Higher doses of surfactants than 100 $\mu\textrm{g}$/plate reduced the number of revertants. It is assumed that the reduction would inhibited cell growth. 3. When the comutagenic ratio is defined as the ratio between mutagenic activity itself and the activity with mutagen and surfactant (drinking water quality standard), LAS showed the comutagenic ratio 0.86-1.17 and SLS 0.74-1.10 as well. According to the comparisons, it could not be recognised for the comutagenicity of drinking water quality standard of surfactant. 4. As increasing the amount of mutagens, the designated amount of surfactant did not affected the mutagen's activity statistically. From the above result, syunthetic surfactants do not present mutagenicity and comutagenicity in the microbial assay.