[The mutagenic activity of cadmium in peroral uptake]

The micronuclear test was used to study cadmium chloride mutagenic activity. The investigation was conducted in an acute experiment on noninbred white mice. Cadmium chloride was administered to four groups of mice (6 mice in each group) intragastrically in doses of 100, 10.2 and 1 microgram/kg (recalculated for cadmium). Control mice received water by the same route. After two administrations of cadmium with a 24-hour interval the animals were sacrificed. The bone marrow preparations were made to analyze the number of polychromophilic red blood cells with micronuclei on 1000 polychromophilic red blood cells detected in the preparation. The results of the analysis were treated according to the Fisher's criterion. The data obtained, compared with literature information, have permitted a suggestion that cadmium administered intragastrically, both in low and high doses, possesses no mutagenic activity with respect to somatic cells.