Fumonisin B$_1$(FB$_1$)은 모든 동물종에서 간독성을 나타내며 흰쥐에서는 간암과 신장독성을 일으키는 발암물질이다. 본 연구에서는 FB$_1$의 반복투여 효과를 관찰하고자 수컷 Sprague-Dawley 흰쥐에 1 mg FB$_1$/kg을 1일(T$_1$) 혹은 2일(T$_2$), 3일(T$_3$)간 반복주사하였다. T$_1$군에서는 간장과 신장 다같이 독성작용이 발견되지 않았으나 간장에서는 대조군에 비해 5.5배의 증가된 세포분열상이 관찰되었다. 한편 T$_3$군에서는 병리조직학적 관찰과 혈청검사에서 간소엽 중심부에 병변이 있는 간독성이 관찰되었으며, 신장은 수질부 outer stripe에서 세포변성이 인정되었다. T$_3$군에서는 간효소를 포함하는 혈청검사치가 증가되었는데 특히 Cholesterol이 증가되었다. 따라서 FB$_1$의 반복 노출시에 신장보다는 간장에서 먼저 세포독성이 관찰되었으며 세포분열 역시 증가되었다.

To investigate the clastogenicity of taxol and its precursor, 10-aleacetyl baccatin III, we performed chromosomal aberration assay with chinese hamster lung cells in vitro. The IC$_{50}$ values of taxol and 10-deacetyl baccatin III were determined as $1/16 \times 10^{-4}$ M (5.34 $\mu$g/ml) and $1 \times 10^{-2}$ M (560 $\mu$g/ml) in MTT assay, respectively. It means that the cytotoxicity of taxol revealed 100 times more cytotoxic than 10-deacetyl baccatin III in chinese hamster lung cell line. Nevertheless the strong positive genetic toxicity of taxol in the bone marrow micronucleus assay in vivo which was recently reported, we observed weak positive clastogenicity of taxoi only in the absence of metabolic activation system in the concentration ranges used in this experiment. Moreover, to clarify the involvement of metabolic fate of taxol because of its strong positive result in vivo, 10-deacetyl baccatin III which is a precursor in taxol synthesis, also subjected in chromosomal aberration assay in vitro. However, we observed no clastogenicity of 10-deacetyl baccatin III in this experiment. From above results, it was suggested that the esterification at C-13 appears to be relative for its genetic toxicity in chromosome aberration using chinese hamster lung cell in vitro.

One mechanism of free-radical production by ethanol is suggested to be through the intracellular conversion of XDH to XO by increased ratio of NADH to NAD. The major mechanism for physiological compensation of cytosolic NADH/NAD balance is the malate/aspartate shutfie. Therefore, it is important to develop the method to improve the efficiency of malate/aspartate shuttle in ethanol metabolism. In the present study, various amino acids and organic acid involved in the shuttle were tested for their functional efficiency in modulating shuttle in the ethanol-perfused rat liver. The rate of ethanol oxidation in the liver perfused with aspartate alone or aspartate in combination with pyruvate, respectively, was increased by about 10% compared to control liver, but not in the tissues perfused with glummate, cysteine or pyruvate alone. Though glummate, cysteine and pyravate did not affect the ethanol oxidation significanfiy, they showed some suppresive effect on the ethanol-induced radical generation monitored by protein carbonylation analysis. Among the tested components, aspartate is confirmed to be the most efficient as a metabolic regulator for both ethanol oxidation and ethanol-induced oxidative stress in our perfusion system. These effects of aspartate would result from NAD recycling by its supplementation through the coupled aspartate aminotransferase/malate dehydrogenase reactions and the malate-aspartate shuttle.

This study was performed by the sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) and micronuclei (MN) assays to investigate the adaptive response to ultraviolet light (UV) or ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) and Sarcoma 180 (S180) cells. The pretreatment with 1 J/m$^2$ UV or 2 mM EMS decreased the frequency of SCEs induced by the treatment with 5 J/m$^2$ UV or 8 mM EMS in CHO cells. The pretreatment with UV (1 or 2 J/m$^2$) or EMS (1, 2 or 3 mM) did not affect the SCEs induced by the treatment with 7 J/m$^2$ UV or 10 mM EMS in S180 cells. On the other hand, the pretreatment with 1 J/m$^2$ UV or 2 mM EMS decreased the frequency of MN induced by the treatment with 5 J/m$^2$ UV or 8 mM EMS in CHO cells. The pretreatment with UV (1 or 2 J/m$^2$) or EMS (1, 2 or 3 mM) did not affect the frequency of MN induced by the treatment with 7 J/m$^2$ UV or 10 mM EMS in S180 cells. It is suggested that there are adaptive responses at the level of chromosome and micronuclei to UV and EMS in CHO cells.

In this study, the micronucleus test with peripheral blood using acridine orange coated slides was evaluated in mice treated with mitomycin C(MMC) at doses of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mg/kg body weight. The peripheral bloods were obtained at 0, 24, 48 and 72h after treatment. The frequencies of micronucleated reficulocytes(MNRET) in the MMC-treated groups increased dose-dependently, and showed a peak time at 48h after treatment. We also performed the sex differences of MNRET frequency in 0.5 mg/kg MMC treated group, and we observed no sex differences in this experiment. And we evaluated the usefulness of a direct acting clastogen, N-methyl-N-nitrosourea and a indirect acting clastogen, benzo(a) pyrene as the positive control in this supravital micronucleus test. They also caused a significant increase in MNRET frequencies. These results suggest that the supravital staining micronucleus test using MNRET can be useful tool to evalulate the quantitative and qualitative assessment of genotoxicity in vivo compared to classical in vivo micronucleus test using bone-marrow cells.

This study was performed to examine the availability of using medaka (Oryzias latipes) in teratological test. Medaka embryos were collected within 2 hours post-fertilization and cultured in petri dishes containing buffered saline until hatching. The embryos were treated with 0.56 mg/l chlorpyrifos-methyl and 10 mM methyl methanesulfonate at 20 stages (about 35 hours post-fertilization). Eleven developmental features were selected and observed from 33 stages (about 9 days post-fertilization). Scoring system was developed and applicated for the measurement of potential teratological effects by the test compound. Chlorpyrifos-methyl did not induce teratological effect in medaka embryos. However, we found teratological test using medaka embryo reduced the cost, labors, period and space of experiment significantly compared with teratological study using rodents. Above findings strongly suggest that medaka embryo can be used as a lab animal model for teratogenicity test instead of rodents.

Aragonite is one of polymorphs of calcium carbonate of which main form is calcite. We found that white precipitate is formed in much amount by boiling underwater of Inchon, Korea and confirmed that it is aragonite. This study is to evaluate the dimensional characteristics, solubility, acid resistance of aragonite and the cytotoxicity, cell division disturbance and cell transforming ability of it on BALB/3T3 cells. The results are as follows: Lengths of the aragonite were reduced to the 72.7% and 22.7% respectively after 5 months and 7 months of intrapleurai injection to the Sprague-Dawley rat. Strong acid such as 1M HCl dissolved the aragonite instantly but weaker acid pH 2.0 or more could not dissolved aragonite easily. The result of cell growth inhibition showed that cell numbers were decreased as log-doses of treatment of the aragonite were increased 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours later. Cell plating efficiency after the aragonite treatment also showed dose-dependent decrease. Multinuclear giant cell formation was increased in the aragonite treated cells until ID$_{50}$ and after the dose the multinucleate cells were decreased, but remained much higher than negative control cells. Morphological transformation assay showed that the aragonite did not induce transformation in all treated doses.