Mutagenic studies on the hair dye 2-(2',4'-diaminophenoxy)ethanol with different genetic systems

A new hair-dye coupler, 2-(2',4'-diaminophenoxy)ethanol was analyzed for its potential mutagenic activity in different genotoxic assays, namely gene reverse mutations in Salmonella typhimurium, forward mutations in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and in the V79 Chinese hamster cell line grown in vitro (HGPRT forward mutation system). Two other genetic test systems, measuring the mitotic gene conversion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain D4) and the unscheduled DNA-repair synthesis in a HeLa cell line grown in vitro, were also used. 2,4-Diaminoanisole, a mutagenic/carcinogenic structurally related hair-dye coupler, and a group of well-known mutagens, namely methyl methanesulfonate, ethyl methanesulfonate, cychlophosphamide, hycanthone and N-nitrosodimethylamine, were used as positive controls. The new aromatic amine, 2-(2',4'-diaminophenoxy)ethanol, was negative in all the assays performed, under the same treatment conditions as in the case of all the positive controls.