Lindsay Pasquale
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What is the Ames Test?
We use chemicals every day in our lives, whether its food,
cosmetics, household products or medicine, or the air we breathe, and it’s
important to know if they are harming us, that’s what the Ames test is for. The
Ames test uses Salmonella bacteria to test whether a chemical is a mutagen. Even
though the salmonella bacteria are already mutated, the test determines if the
chemical can mutate the mutation back to normal.
The Ames test is widely used by the pharmaceutical industry to test
drugs before using them in clinical trials. If the Ames test shows that a drug
is mutagenic, then it is usually rejected for further development such as
testing on animals or used therapeutically in humans. The Food and Drug
Administration requires companies to complete the Ames test before marketing
their item, usually most drugs or cosmetics.
A few common materials needed to complete this test include;
sterile filter paper disks, agar plate, tubes to hold the substance in, and a
flame for sterilization. It’s important to follow directions carefully and have
temperature set at what they are supposed to be.
The Ames test can also determine if the substance tested is a carcinogen,
which is to cause cancer. In the process of this test the bacteria forms colonies
which are spread throughout the disk. The scattered colonies close to the
margin of the disk represent spontaneous revertants. A revertant is a mutant
that has reverted to its previous genotype or the original phenotype by means
of a suppressor mutation. Many chemicals are not mutagenic or carcinogenic in
themselves, but they form into mutagens or carcinogens as they are metabolized
by the body. Anything that survives is a mutation, and the more of those that
you get, the worse your test substance was. The result of that is because the
mutation occurs while the DNA was being repaired, the test compound either
caused damage or caused it to ruin the replication process.
The Ames test is traditionally used for as a proxy for carcinogenic
or mutagenic potential. Its not a good resource for general toxicity, because
there is a good amount of toxic compounds that don’t work by damaging DNA.
In Japan, Safrole, a colorless or slightly yellow liquid typically
extracted from a fruit in a form of oil, was being used as a flavoring agent
added to root beer but now banned. Through the years a lot of everyday food
items or products with certain chemicals have now been banned, once research
has grown and regulations have changed.
Humans and animals are surrounded by all different types of
chemical substances, occurring both naturally and as well as synthetic. In my
opinion I think the Ames test is a better way of testing rather than on
animals. I think animal testing is extremely cruel and heartbreaking, especially
after seeing how it is done and the effects it has on the animals after. If a
substance or chemical is being tested by the Ames test, then I don’t see a need
for other people to test the same substance on an animal to receive the same
results.
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