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The Ames miniscreen assay: Volatility of sodium azide can cause an increase in the reversion frequencies of adjacent, untreated wells
Author(s) -
Wilson John D.,
Cariello Neal F.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
environmental and molecular mutagenesis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1098-2280
pISSN - 0893-6692
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-2280(1997)29:2<217::aid-em12>3.0.co;2-h
Subject(s) - sodium azide , hydrazoic acid , reversion , chemistry , incubation , azide , mutagen , sodium , volatility (finance) , nitrous acid , biochemistry , environmental chemistry , inorganic chemistry , organic chemistry , dna , financial economics , economics , gene , phenotype
Sodium azide, when added to wells adjacent to untreated wells, caused an increase in the reversion rate of Salmonella typhimurium TA100 in a 12‐well plate format. Increases in the reversion frequency in adjacent, untreated wells were observed when a single well on the plate was treated with as little as 1 μg of sodium azide. This effect is probably caused by the hydrolysis of sodium azide to form hydrazoic acid. Hydrazoic acid has a boiling point of 37°C and, thus, would become a diffusible gas duringthe incubation of the plates. Our findings suggest that a diffusible gas is present and that this gas has the ability to contaminate nearby wells when using the multiwell version of the Ames assay. Furthermore, it may be prudent to isolate all positive controls and negative controls on separate plates with no test material since a volatile test material could produce spurious results in the Ames miniscreen. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 29:217–219, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.