S9 Activation Enzymes

Many chemical mutagens and carcinogens require metabolic activation in order to interact with DNA.

As bacterial mutagenicity/genotoxicity assays are important tools for testing environmental, new chemical and pharmaceutical entites for potential genetic toxicity, metabolic activation processess must be incorperated to synthesize this process.

As Bacteria are only a model organism to sumultate human cellular effect, a rat liver fraction is incorperated into the tests to activate mutagenic chemicals from their promutagen state, into thier active mutagen state.

The S9 rat liver fractions in the test medium contain digestive enzymes which metabolize promutagenic chemicals much like the human body would. This allows for increasing the reach and scope of the bacterial bioassays.

This technique allows for a simple and cost effective way to screen for mutagens and genotoxins which are only dangerous when metabolized in the human body.