[The mutagenic action of the dust of natural zeolites and chrysotile asbestos]

Abstract

The cell chemiluminescence method was used to demonstrate the ability of asbest and zeolite dusts from 8 deposits of the USSR to induce generation of free oxygen radicals in the phagocytosing cells suspension. It has been found that asbest and zeolite (0.01 and 0.05 mg/ml) increase levels of cells with chromosome aberrations in human cell cultures. The cytogenetic effect of asbest was inhibited by superoxide dismutase (50 mg/ml). The damaging effect of zeolite was decreased by the pharmacological drug bemithyl (0.007-0.07 mM) and completely eliminated by catalase (20 mg/ml). The results obtained indicate that mutagenic effect of dust particles of asbest and zeolite is mediated by oxygen radicals.