Genetic toxicity of erythrosine in yeast

The genetic activity of erythrosine, a fluorescein dye used as a color additive, was studied in assays with growing cells of different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Erythrosine induced mitotic gene conversion and reverse mutation in strains D7 and XV185-14C of yeast. It failed, however, to increase mitotic recombination in strain D5. These results show that erythrosine possesses genotoxic activity for eukaryotic cells.