ABSTRACT
A coplanar polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) when eaten by test animals increased the rate of recombination in somatic cells, indicating a new mechanism of action for these compounds. Using the eye-mosaic test a high bioactivation strain of Drosophila that consumed 4,4'-dichlorobiphenyl (4,4'-DCB) manifested a genotoxicity rate that was three-fold greater than that in animals fed the solvent-spiked medium. This compound was not genotoxic in a suppressed bioactivation strain indicating that genotoxicity requires bioactivation of the compound. High bioactivation test strains made heterozygous for a paracentric inversion, a chromosomal rearrangement that suppresses homologous recombination, exhibited significantly reduced genotoxicity after treatment.
