ASSESSING MUTAGENICITY OF THE DRUG MDMA (ECSTASY) AVAILABLE IN IRAN USING AMES BIOASSAY

An increase in incidence of illegal use of tablets containing 3, 4-methylene dioxy- metamphetamine (MDMA), has recently become a widespread social problem. MDMA most commonly known today by the street name ecstasy (often abbreviated XTC), is a semi-synthetic member of the amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs. The aim of this study was to investigate the genotoxic effects of MDMA on the basis of the results of an in vitro Ames test. In the first step, a sensitive method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for simultaneous quantitation of MDMA in the tablets. The Ames test uses one of the strains of the bacterium Salmonella typhymurium (TA100) that carries mutations in genes involved in histidine synthesis, so that it requires histidine for growth. The variable being tested is the mutagen's ability to cause a reversion, making bacteria grows on a histidine-free medium. When the cultures are exposed to a mutagen, in the absence and presence of a rat liver metabolizing system, some of the bacteria undergo genetic changes due to chemical interactions resulting in reversion of the bacteria to a non-histidine requiring state. The reverted bacteria will then grow in the absence of exogenous histidine. In this test, we used MDMA as a possible mutagen. No increase in bacteria growth in the histidine-free medium was observed. So, no MDMA genotoxicity was observed in this method.