Abstract: “Municipal wastewaters may contain a variety of genotoxic compounds, including drugs or their metabolites, PAHs, etc. Bacterial genotoxicity assays use DNA impairment as end point while micronucleus tests, conducted on eucaryotes, assess chromosome aberrations. As relatively few comparative studies exist, in this study results of the micronucleus test using the painter’s mussel (Unio pictorum) are compared to those of two bacterial assays, the Ames test and the SOS Chromotest. Both the Ames test and the micronucleus test showed clear concentration-response pattern, however, the Ames test proved more sensitive. Of the two bacterial assays, the SOS Chromotest gave positive result only for the most concentrated sample.”

Keywords: municipal wastewater, genotoxicity, mussel micronucleus test, Ames test, SOS Chromotest