Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of Carbosulfan (the effective ingredient in Marshal, a carbamate insecticide/nematocide), Ethyl Carbamate (EC=carcinogen and Ethyl Methanesulfonat (EMS=mutagen) separately and in mixtures to induce sister chromatid exchange (SCE) in human lymphocytes and to nivestigate whether the test substances, as a mixture had any syn-ergistic or antogonistic effect. Carbosulfan separately weakly induced SCE during the 48 hour treat-ment. Although EC separately could not induce SCE, EMS separately induced dose-dependently SCE at 24 and 48 hour treatments. EC increased the RI, while Carbosulfan and EMS decreased it during the 48 hour treatment. The mixtures of Carbosulfan+EC and Carbosulfan-EMS induced the SCE at all con-centrations and treatment times and decreased the RI compared with normal and solvent controls. In addition, there was synergism between the mixtures of Carbosulfan and EC and also between the mix-tures of Carbosulfan and EMS on the induction of SCE and also on the decrease in the RI.

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