Discrimination of aneuploidogens from clastogens by C-banding, DNA and area measurements of micronuclei from mouse bone marrow

Abstract Micronuclei (MN) obtained from mouse bone marrow cells, in vivo exposed to 3 typical clastogens (procarbazine, azathioprine, ethyl methanesulfonate) and 3 typical aneuploidogens (vinblastine, tubulzole, colchicine), were examined for C-band, area and DNA content. C-banding allows a clear discrimination between clastogens and aneuploidogens: the clastogens do not exceed 50% C-band-positive MN and the aneuploidogens all 3 produce 65–75% C-band-positive MN. Concerning the DNA content the percentages of MN containing more DNA than an average chromosome ( chr ) are lower than 12% for the clastogens and 38–60% for the aneuploidogens. As far as the area of the MN is concerned the percentages of MN which have a larger area than chr are lower than 23% for the clastogens and range from 47% to 71% for the aneuploidogens. Additionally 3 other mutagens were studied. Hydroquinone induces 43% C-band-positive MN with DNA content far below the content of chr ; considering the area measurements, however, hydroquinone behaves as an aneuploidogen (65% of the MN are larger than chr ). Mitomycin C lies between the clastogens and the aneuploidogens for all 3 criteria but 5-azacytidine is comparable to the model aneuploidogens.