Poster together with Concawe presented at the SOT 2017: Use of ToxTracker for Petrochemical products
The goal of this project was to investigate whether the ToxTracker assay can be applied to petroleum UVCBs as a high-content screen for mutagenicity / carcinogenicity by testing by testing twelve DMSO extracts of petroleum substances for (geno)toxic properties in the assay.
Conclusions:
- The ToxTracker assay was applicable to complex petroleum UVCBs, including bioactivation by S9 hamster liver extract following standard operation procedures in the currently applied screens in the petroleum industry (Modified Ames and IP346)
- Petroleum extracts with a high PAC content activated the genotoxicity reporters in the ToxTracker assay
- ToxTracker indicated a mutagenic rather then a clastogenic mode-of-action of the genotoxic petroleum extracts.
- The genotoxicity results from ToxTracker showed a good correlation with mutation induction in the ModAmes test
- Overall, the current results from the Tracker assay applied to petroleum substances confirms the hypothesis that more refined petroleum streams low in PAC content have a low potential to be mutagenic / carcinogenic in contrast to petroleum streams with relatively high level PAC
- This study is a promising first step towards developing a novel assay to screen for the mutagenic / carcinogenic potential of petroleum streams
- Future work includes investigating ways to prevent auto-fluorescence of PACs in substances with higher PAC levels than presented in the current study
