Nitrofuran induced mutagenesis and error prone repair in Escherichia coli

Nitrofuran derivatives are a class of compounds which exhibit mutagenic and cytotoxic effects in bacteria and mammalian cells in tissue culture after metabolic activation by endogenous nitroreductases. The relationship between mutation and induction of pleiotropic error-prone repair functions (the 'SOS' system) in bacteria following exposure to nitrofurans was examined. A variety of nitrofurans were found to induce protein X, the recA+ protein, …