An evaluation of 25 selected ToxCast chemicals in medium-throughput assays to detect genotoxicity

ToxCast is a multiyear effort to develop a cost-effective approach for the US EPA to prioritize chemicals for toxicity testing. Initial evaluation of more than 500 high-throughput (HT) microwell-based assays without metabolic activation showed that most lacked high specificity and sensitivity for detecting genotoxicants. Thus, EPA initiated a pilot project to investigate the use of standard genotoxicity endpoints using medium-throughput genotoxicity (MTG) assays in the context of a large testing program. Twenty-five chemicals were selected from the ToxCast program based in part on their known genotoxicity. The two MTG assays used were the Ames II™ assay and 96-well In Vitro MicroFlow® Micronucleus (MN) assay. The Ames II assay showed a reasonable correlation with published Ames test data and industry submissions, though specificity was much better than sensitivity due to restraints on top concentrations as prescribed by ToxCast. Overall concordance was 73% both with and without metabolic activation. The flow MN assay had concordances of 71% and 58% with and without metabolic activation, respectively, when compared to published data and submissions. Importantly, a comparison of results without S9 from the MTG assays to an HT ToxCast p53 activation assay showed a fairly good degree of concordance (67%). The results reported here indicate that assays for genotoxicity endpoints can be conducted in a MT format and have the potential to add to the interpretation of results from large-scale testing programs such as EPA's ToxCast program. Inherent limitations such as the top concentrations used in large scale testing programs are discussed. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 56:468–476, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.