Evaluation of the first ten MEIC chemicals in the Allium test

By Fiskesjo, G. - Levan, A.

After joining the MEIC (multicentre evaluation of in vitro cytotoxicity) programme, and submitting the first ten compounds of the programme to the Allium test, we found that this test correlates well with several other tests (e.g. MIT-24 cell test, and tests with mice, rats or humans in vivo). The compounds tested were paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid, iron sulphate, diazepam, amitriptyline, digoxin, ethylene glycol, methanol, ethanol and isopropanol. Among them, paracetamol turned out to induce chromosome breakage in the meristems of Allium cepa root tips. This is the same qualitative response to paracetamol as that obtained previously in human lymphocytes in vivo and in vitro. The present results indicate that the eukaryotic higher plants may serve as highly useful test systems for biological risk evaluation.