Assessment of skin absorption and penetration of JP-8 jet fuel and its components.

Dermal penetration and absorption of jet fuels in general, and JP-8 in particular, is not well understood, even though government and industry, worldwide, use over 4.5 billion gallons of JP-8 per year. Exposures to JP-8 can occur from vapor, liquid, or aerosol. Inhalation and dermal exposure are the most prevalent routes. JP-8 may cause irritation during repeated or prolonged exposures, but it is unknown whether systemic toxicity can occur from dermal penetration of fuels. The purpose of this investigation was to measure the penetration and absorption of JP-8 and its major constituents with rat skin, so that the potential for effects with human exposures can be assessed. We used static diffusion cells to measure both the flux of JP-8 and components across the skin and the kinetics of absorption into the skin. Total flux of the hydrocarbon components was 20.3 micrograms/cm(2)/h. Thirteen individual components of JP-8 penetrated into the receptor solution. The fluxes ranged from a high of 51.5 micrograms/cm(2)/h (an additive, diethylene glycol monomethyl ether) to a low of 0.334 micrograms/cm(2)/h (tridecane). Aromatic components penetrated most rapidly. Six components (all aliphatic) were identified in the skin. Concentrations absorbed into the skin at 3.5 h ranged from 0.055 micrograms per gram skin (tetradecane) to 0.266 micrograms per gram skin (undecane). These results suggest: (1) that JP-8 penetration will not cause systemic toxicity because of low fluxes of all the components; and (2) the absorption of aliphatic components into the skin may be a cause of skin irritation.

Mutagenicity of vinyl chloride and its reactive metabolites, chloroethylene oxide and chloroacetaldehyde, in a metabolically competent human B-lymphoblastoid line.

Vinyl chloride (VC), a known human and rodent carcinogen, is metabolically activated by cytochrome P450 to chloroethylene oxide (CEO), which can rearrange to chloroacetaldehyde (CAA) or undergo hydrolysis. To further understand the roles of CEO and CAA in VC mutagenesis, the types and frequencies of mutations induced at the hypoxanthine (guanine) phosphoribosyl-transferase (hprt) locus were examined in a human B-lymphoblastoid line constitutively expressing human cytochrome P450 2E1 (H2E1 cells). VC was toxic and mutagenic to H2E1 cells as a function of incubation time; exposure to 7.5% VC in air resulted in 75% survival and an hprt mutant frequency of 42 x 10(-6) after 48 h, compared to 5.7 +/- 2.7 x 10(-6) for unexposed cells. The exposure of H2E1 cells to 0.8 to 15.0% VC in air produced similar mutant frequencies without a clear dose-response relationship, suggesting saturation of metabolic activation. Both CEO and CAA exhibited dose-dependent increases in cell killing and mutant frequency in H2E1 cells. Treatment with 16 microM CEO for 24 h resulted in 75% survival and an induced mutant frequency of 23 x 10(-6), while 16 microM CAA produced 5% survival and an induced mutant frequency of 20 x 10(-6). Structural alterations at the hprt locus in independent thioguanine-resistant clones were examined by Southern blot analysis of Pst I-digested DNA with a full-length human hprt cDNA probe. Ten percent (5/50) of VC-induced and 18% (7/38) of CEO-induced mutants showed detectable deletions, compared with 45% (9/20) of CAA-induced mutants. Thus, VC and CEO displayed similar toxicity/mutation profiles and a similar frequency of large deletions, whereas CAA displayed greater toxicity and a larger frequency of deletion mutations. These results suggest that the majority of mutations induced by VC occur through its metabolite, CEO.