Abstract
IN a communication under this heading, Lüning1 has suggested a routine procedure by which potentially mutagenic drugs can be screened in tests on Drosophila. He uses developmental delay as the type of somatic damage that is likely to be correlated with whatever genetical damage has occurred. I wish to point out that in the only instance in which, to my knowledge, the effects of the same mutagen on developmental delay and mutation frequency were investigated, the correlation between them was clearly and strikingly negative. When larvae are raised on food to which formaldehyde at a low concentration has been added, high mutation frequencies are obtained so long as development proceeds at the normal speed. Any condition that delays development of the treated larvae—be this shortage of food, poor quality of food, supplementary harmful treatments, or even a more than optimal concentration of formaldehyde—concomitantly decreases mutation frequency2. For this particular mutagen, therefore, developmental delay would be a highly misleading guide to mutagenicity. It is, of course, possible that formaldehyde is exceptional in this respect, and that Lüning's test might be more reliable for other chemicals. Before this can be assumed, however, it will be necessary to establish experimentally for at least one member of the group of chemicals to be screened that its mutagenic action is positively correlated with its delaying action on development.
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References
Lüning, K. G., Nature, 209, 84 (1965).
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AUERBACH, C. Drosophila-tests in Pharmacology. Nature 210, 104 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/210104a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/210104a0
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