Effects of butylated hydroxyanisole in Drosophila melanogaster

The standard sex-linked recessive lethal test using "Basc" virgin females and treated Canton S males was used to test potential mutagenicity of ingested butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) on mature spermatozoa. Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) was employed as a positive control and at lower concentrations a roughly linear dose response curve resulted. Flies treated with BHA yielded no higher frequency of sex-linked recessive lethals than did control flies, and statistical analysis confirmed that a high confidence level, the BHA treatment used did not double the spontaneous frequency of sex-linked recessive lethals.