Mutagenesis Advance Access originally published online on December 14, 2006
Mutagenesis 2007 22(1):43-47; doi:10.1093/mutage/gel057
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Mutagenicity of UV-irradiated maltol in Salmonella typhimurium
1 Kureha Corporation Biomedical Research Laboratories 3-26-2, Hyakunin-cho, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8503, Japan 2 School of Life Science, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science 1432-1 Horinouchi, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0392, Japan
We investigated the photomutagenicity of maltol (3-hydroxy-2-methyl-4H-pyran-4-one) in bacterial cells. Maltol has a caramel-butterscotch odour and is used as a food additive to impart flavour to bread and cakes. Unirradiated maltol was not mutagenic up to 5 mg/plate in the Ames test. When maltol was irradiated with either UVA (a black light, 320400 nm, 230 µW/cm2) for 530 min or UVC (a germicidal lamp, 610 µW/cm2) for 3 min in sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) prior to the exposure of bacterial cells, it was mutagenic to Salmonella typhimurium TA100, TA104 and TA97. Mutagenic activation of maltol by UVA-irradiation was more evident in neutral and alkaline conditions (pH 7.09.0) than in acidic conditions. On the other hand, photomutagenicity was not observed when maltol was irradiated with UVA in 100 mM NaCl solution or water. The mutagenic photoproduct was stable for at least 60 min after UVA-irradiation. However, addition of thiol compounds (cysteine or glutathione) to the UVA-irradiated maltol diminished the mutagenicity. Mutational spectrum analysis revealed that the predominant base-substitutions induced were G:C
T:A transversions and G:C
A:T transitions. An increase of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine formation in salmon sperm DNA exposed to maltol and UVA in vitro was detected by HPLC-ECD, but it was too small to explain the photomutagenicity. We are considering the formation of DNA adducts as the photomutagenic mechanism.
| Introduction |
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Kojic acid (5-hydroxy-2-hydroxymethyl-4H-pyran-4-one), which had been used as a food additive and in cosmetics, was withdrawn from the list of existing food additives in Japan in 2003, because the possibility of involvement of genotoxicity of kojic acid in mouse hepatoma development could not be excluded. Since there were contradictory reports on the mutagenicity of kojic acid (1
UV irradiation can generate photoproducts that cause mutations via different types of mechanisms. One is the generation of short-lived products such as reactive oxygen species or the molecules in their short-lived excited state that react directly with the DNA (3
7
). Another is the formation of more stable photoproducts upon irradiation. Photomutagenicity of maltol was the latter case. Some aromatic and heterocyclic amines such as 2-aminofluorene, 2-acetylaminofluorene, 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (IQ) and 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo-[4,5-f]quinoline (MelQ) are reported to form highly stable direct-acting mutagenic photoproducts by irradiation with near-UV light (8
). 7,12-Dimethylbenz[a]anthracene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compound, showed direct-acting mutagenicity following fluorescent lamp illumination (9
). Some N-nitroso compounds, such as N-nitrosopiperidine, N-nitrosodimethylamine and N-nitrosopyrrolidine, are another class of photomutagens that were converted to direct-acting mutagens by UVA-irradiation (10
13
). However, the mechanisms leading to photomutagenicity as well as the identification of mutagenic photoproducts have not always been elucidated. Since the photomutagenic property of pyrone compounds has not been reported, we investigated the mechanisms of photoactivation of maltol in this study.
| Materials and methods |
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Chemicals, bacterial strains and mutation test
Maltol (>99%) was purchased from Wako Pure Chemical Industries, (Tokyo) and dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at 100 mg/ml. L-cysteine and glutathione (reduced form) were purchased from Wako Pure Chemical Ind. and Sigma-Aldrich, MO, USA, respectively. We used Salmonella typhimurium strains TA100 [hisG46, uvrB, rfa/pKM101], TA98 [hisD3052, uvrB, rfa/pKM101], TA97 [hisD6610, uvrB, rfa/pKM101] and TA104 [hisG428, uvrB, rfa/pKM101] (14
We used Escherichia coli strains WP3101PWP3106P (16
) to determine the mutational spectrum. These strains are F' plasmid-carrying derivatives of strain WP2000P [uvrA155, trpE65,
(lac-pro)/pKM101] and exhibit a Lac, Trp phenotype. Each of the six F' plasmids (lac, lacZ , proAB+) has a unique lacZ mutation at the codon for Glu-461 (17
). The mutations necessary for Lac+ reversion are A:T
C:G for WP3101P, G:C
A:T for WP3102P, G:C
C:G for WP3103P, G:C
T:A for WP3104P, A:T
T:A for WP3105P and A:T
G:C for WP3106P. The MGT medium, ML agar plates, NBT-top agar and the assay method have been described previously (16
,18
). We conducted the experiments in triplicate for each dose and used five plates for the control. The data presented in the figures are the means of two experiments.
UVA and UVC irradiation
We added maltol (115 µl of 100 mg/ml solution dissolved in DMSO) into 0.5 ml 100 mM sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) in each well of a 24-well multiplate and then irradiated it with UVA for 530 min or UVC for 13 min at room temperature. In some experiments, we used sodium phosphate buffer with a different pH, 10 mM TrisHCl buffer, 100 mM NaCl or 10 mM NaHCO3. We used a black-light fluorescent lamp (National Black Light Blue, FL15BL-B, 15W, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Japan) that emitted wavelengths of 300400 nm as the UVA source. To filter out UVB wavelengths below 320 nm, a 5 mm thick soft glass plate was used (10
12
,19
). The solution in a lidded 24-well multiplate was irradiated with UVA from a distance of 20 cm at 230 µW/cm2 (UVX Radiometer, Model UVX-36, Ultra-Violet Products, Upland, CA, USA). On the other hand, we used a germicidal lamp (Toshiba, GL-15) as the UVC source and irradiated solutions on a multiplate without a lid at 610 µW/cm2 (UVX Radiometer, Model UVX-25).
8-OHdG Assay
We dissolved maltol in 10 mM Na-phosphate buffer at 10 mg/ml. We dissolved salmon sperm DNA (Wako Pure Chemical) in TE buffer at 5 mg/ml and dialysed it against 10 mM Na-phosphate buffer (pH 7.4). We mixed DNA (0.5 mg) and maltol (0.06, 0.13, 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 mg) into 0.25 ml sodium phosphate buffer in each well of a 24-well multiplate (final concentrations of maltol were 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mg/ml), irradiated the mixture with UVA for 20 min, and then dialysed the reaction mixture against water. N-nitrosopyrrolidine (Sigma-Aldrich) dissolved in sodium phosphate buffer was used as a positive control (12
, 20
). We treated the dialysed DNA with Nuclease P1 (5 unit, Seikagaku, Tokyo) in sodium acetate buffer (20 mM, pH 4.8) at 37°C for 2 h, and then by bacterial alkaline phosphatase (1 unit, Takara Bio Inc., Shiga, Japan) in TrisHCl buffer (100 mM, pH 8.0) at 37°C for an additional 2 h (20
). We then removed the enzymes by ultrafiltration (14 000 g, 10 min) with Microcon YM-30 (Millipore, USA), added 1 µl 500 mM EDTA (pH 8.0) to the filtered samples and kept the mixture at 20°C. We measured the amount of deoxyguanosine (dG) and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) using a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system (Tosoh, Japan). The system was composed of two pumps (CCPM-II), a degasser (SD-8020), an autosampler (AS-8020), a column oven (CO-8020), a reverse-phase column (Hyderosphere C18, 5 µm, 150 x 4.6 mm ID, YMC, Japan), a UV detector (UV-8020) and an electrochemical detector (ECD, EC-8020). We used Tosoh HPLC Multi Station software (LC-8020) for data acquisition. A 25 µl of sample was injected into the HPLC system. 8-OHdG and dG were eluted at a flow rate of 1 ml/min. We used two solvents for gradient elutionsolvent A (2% acetonitorile in 10 mM phosphate buffer and 1 mM EDTA, pH 7.0) and solvent B (8% acetonitrile in the same buffer). The elution conditions were as follows: 05 min 0% solvent B; 520 min, 0100% solvent B; 2025 min 100% solvent B isocractic; 2530 min 1000% solvent B. The column temperature was maintained at 35°C. 8-OHdG was detected with the ECD equipped with glassy carbon working electrode operated at +500 mV versus a Ag/AgCl reference electrode. dG was measured by UV absorption at 254 nm. Data were expressed as 8-OHdG/105 dG (nM).
| Results |
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Photomutagenic property
When maltol was irradiated with UVA for 530 min in 100 mM sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) prior to incubation with bacterial cells (TA100), it was mutagenic in proportion to the irradiation time (Figure 1), while non-irradiated maltol was not mutagenic. UVC-irradiation also effectively activated maltol (Figure 1). At pH 7.4, 10 mM sodium phosphate was more conductive than 100 mM to photoactivation (Table I). Photoactivation was pH dependent. In 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer, photomutagenicity decreased with pH starting at pH 6.0. Photomutagenicity was observed in 10 mM TrisHCl buffer (pH 7.5 and 8.3) and 10 mM NaHCO3 (pH 8.9) indicating that photoactivation did not require phosphate anion. UVA-irradiation did not activate maltol in 100 mM NaCl or in water (Table I). UVC, however, did activate maltol in 100 mM NaCl, suggesting photoactivation of maltol required greater energy in NaCl solution than in other buffer solutions.
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Mutational specificity and 8-OHdG
When UVA-irradiated maltol was assayed with 4 different tester strains, it was mutagenic in TA100 (14 times the control value at 1 mg/plate), less in TA97 and TA104 (
5 times the control value at 1 mg/plate), and almost non-mutagenic to TA98 (Figure 2). Therefore, UVA-irradiated maltol induced both 1 frameshift and base-substitution mutations. To investigate the spectrum of the base-substitutions we conducted a Lac+ reversion assay using E. coli strains WP3101PWP3106P. UVA-irradiated maltol induced predominantly G:C
T:A transversions (15 times the control value) and G:C
A:T transitions (9 times the control) as shown in Figure 3. Other types of base pair substitutions were not detected. Since G:C
T:A transversions, which are typically caused by oxidative DNA damage (21
1.7 times that of the corresponding non-irradiated control (Figure 4). The results indicated that the contribution of 8-OHdG to the photomutagenicity of maltol was very small.
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Stability of photoactivated maltol and inactivation by cysteine
The photomutagenic product(s) derived from UVA-irradiated maltol was considerably stable in a pH 7.4 sodium phosphate buffer. Maltol solution kept at room temperature in the dark after UVA-irradiation was equally mutagenic to TA100 after 30 min, and about 80% mutagenic activity remained at 60 min (Figure 5). Similar results were obtained in TA97 (data not shown). On the other hand, the addition of thiol compounds diminished the mutagenicity. At 200 µg cysteine/well (dissolved in sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.4), the number of induced revertants of TA100 was reduced by 80% (Figure 6). Similar results were observed with glutathione (data not shown).
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| Discussion |
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We previously reported that thiabendazole (TBZ), a post-harvest fungicide, shows potent mutagenicity following UVA irradiation, probably by adduct formation, in E. coli WP2uvrA/pKM101 and the predominant mutations were G:C
A:T transitions and A:T
T:A transversions (7
T:A transversions, but formation of 8-OHdG was not likely to be an important lesion. In addition, 1 frameshift mutations (TA97) were efficiently induced. Photomutagenicity of maltol was not detected in excision repair-proficient (uvrB+) strains TA102 and TA92 (data not shown), suggesting that the DNA damage generated was repaired by the excision repair system. Although the photomutagenic mechanism of UVA-irradiated maltol has not been clarified, we suspect that DNA bulky adduct formation may be involved.
It has been reported that 5-hyroxymaltol, a glucose pyrolysate, is almost as mutagenic to TA100 as to E. coli WP2uvrA/pKM101 (24
). UVA-irradiated maltol, on the other hand, was barely mutagenic to WP2uvrA/pKM101 (data not shown). We are trying to isolate the mutagenic compound by HPLC. In our preliminary analysis of an active HPLC fraction by LC-TOF/MS, we could not find a signal corresponding to 5-hydroxymaltol (m/z 142) among several signals detected (M. Watanabe-Akanuma, unpublished data). Further investigation is needed to identify the mutagenic compound(s) and clarify the photomutagenic mechanism.
On the other hand, there were contradictory reports on the bacterial mutagenicity of maltol itself. It was reported to be a weak mutagen to S. typhimurium TA100 (25
), but others obtained negative results in the Ames/Salmonella test with and without S9mix (26
). In our present assay, maltol without UV-irradiation was not mutagenic to Salmonella strains TA100, TA98, TA97 and TA104. Mutagenic photoproduct of maltol might explain the discrepancy.
| Acknowledgments |
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We thank Dr Miriam Bloom for her critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture of Japan (18602003).
| Notes |
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*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +81 3 3362 7420; Fax: +81 3 3362 8522; Email: akanuma{at}kureha.co.jp
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Received on July 18, 2006; revised on September 12, 2006; accepted on October 26, 2006.
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