Pentamidine isethionate is negative in tests for microbial mutagenicity and chromosomal breakage in vitro.
Pentamidine isethionate, a drug used for the treatment of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in AIDS patients, was assayed for mutagenicity in five strains of Salmonella typhimurium and for clastogenicity and mutagen-induced chromosomal breakage in five human lymphoblastoid cell lines. The mutagenicity assay employed both repair-deficient and repair-positive strains without and with the addition of rat liver S-9. There was no indication of a mutagenic response in any of the strains of Salmonella. Chromosomal breakage was measured in lymphoblastoid cell lines, both in the absence and presence of bleomycin. Following 2, 5 and 24 h of treatment, pentamidine alone did not induce clastogenicity, nor was there an increase in chromosomal breakage when the cell lines were treated with bleomycin simultaneously with, or 22 h prior to, the addition of pentamidine. From these data it can be concluded that pentamidine is not mutagenic or clastogenic in the two assays employed in this study.
Connor
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University of Texas Health Science Center, School of Public Health, Houston 77225.
Trizna
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D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000187:drug effects; D008297:Male; D009152:Mutagenicity Tests; D010419:Pentamidine / Q000633:toxicity*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012486:Salmonella typhimurium; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
D010419:Pentamidine