Polymerase chain reaction-based deletion screening of bisulfite (sulfur dioxide)-enhanced gpt-mutants in CHO-AS52 cells.

In this study, we have examined the mutagenicity of bisulfite (sulfur dioxide) at the xathine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase locus (gpt) in the pSV2 gpt-transformed CHO cell line, AS52. Our results provide evidence for bisulfite as a weak gene mutagen because the chemical at high doses and at high cytotoxicity causes a 4-fold increase in mutant frequency (MF) and less than a doubling of the gpt gene deletion frequency compared to control. We suggest that the increase of MF in bisulfite-treated cells results from bisulfite activity,as a comutagen, enhancing the induction effect of unknown endogenous or exogenous factors on spontaneous mutagenesis of AS52 cells. For the spontaneous, 5 mM bisulfite- and 10 mM bisulfite-enhanced spontaneous mutants in AS52 cells, the percentage of total deletion mutations of the gpt gene is 36%, 44% and 65%, respectively