Genotoxicity and Embryotoxicity of the Insecticide Primicid in Chick Embryo

Abstract

Growing chick embryos were treated with primicid to examine the cytogenetic and embryotoxic effects of this insecticide. For the cytogenetic assay, eggs were injected through the air chamber with primicid at a concentration of 0.25, 0.50, 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0% aqueous solutions. A single exposure of 3-day embroys was found to increae the incidence of sister-chromatid exchanges (SCE) in cells from allantois and limb buds. However, significant SCE values were observed only at 4.0% primicid (1.88 ± 0.21 SCE per cell) as compared to the baseline SCE level in the control (0.95 ± 0.11). In respect to the embryotoxici-ty, the eggs were immersed, for 30 seconds, in the above solutions, before incubation. No significant differences were obtained in weight between different treatment groups. Furthermore, primicid resulted in dose-related increase in mortality rate and induced external malformations. In general, these variations were not significant except at the highest two exposure doses (2.0% and 4.0%), which correspond to 5 and 10 times the recommended application level. These result suggest that long-term developmental and genetic alterations may occur following human exposure to primicid.