| Abstract
| - Glyphosate (N-phosphonomethylglycine) is an effectiveherbicide acting on the synthesis of aromaticamino acids in plants. The genotoxic potential of this herbicidehas been studied: the resultsavailable in the open literature reveal a weak activity of thetechnical formulation. In this study,the formulated commercial product, Roundup, and its active agent,glyphosate, were tested in thesame battery of assays for the induction of DNA damage and chromosomaleffects in vivo and invitro. Swiss CD1 mice were treated intraperitoneally withtest substances, and the DNA damagewas evaluated by alkaline elution technique and 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine(8-OHdG) quantificationin liver and kidney. The chromosomal damage of the two pesticidepreparations was also evaluatedin vivo in bone marrow of mice as micronuclei frequency andin vitro in human lymphocyte cultureas SCE frequency. A DNA-damaging activity as DNA single-strandbreaks and 8-OHdG and asignificant increase in chromosomal alterations were observed with bothsubstances in vivo and invitro. A weak increment of the genotoxic activity was evidentusing the technical formulation. Keywords: Pesticides; in vivo genotoxicity; in vitrogenotoxicity; SCE; micronucleus test; alkalineelution; DNA oxidative damage
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