Microbial Mutagenicity Assay Kits

DNA is the carrier of genetic information, and damage to its structure may lead to mutations, chromosomal alterations, and other changes that may have serious consequences, including the development of cancer, heritable diseases, and developmental defects. Genotoxicity testing is a vital screening tool to assess the potential hazard of a substance to cause irreversible genetic alterations. It is an integral part of the safety assessment process in many industries, such as food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, chemicals, and environmental testing.

Genotoxicity testing includes in vitro and in vivo tests to detect substances that directly or indirectly induce genetic damage through different mechanisms. These assays can evaluate the interaction of substances with DNA and their effects on genome integrity and stability. This effect can occur through a variety of mechanisms, such as direct binding to DNA, induction of DNA strand breaks, interference with DNA repair mechanisms, or disruption of chromosome segregation during cell division.

Amerigo Scientific provides a range of easy-to-use and reliable bacterial reverse mutation assay (Ames test) kits to evaluate the genotoxicity potential of substances.

Ames Test Kits

Amerigo Scientific provides a range of Ames kits using Salmonella typhimurium TA97a, TA98, TA100, TA1535, and Escherichia coli WP2 uvrA (pKM101) auxotrophic strains as indicator bacteria. Different specifications of kits are available to meet the different testing needs of customers. In our products, auxotrophic strains (frozen bacterial suspensions) are solidified, the metabolic activation system is simplified, and all supporting reagents are included to achieve "one-stop" testing.

Our kits provide an efficient, stable and accurate method to evaluate the mutagenic effect of substances by detecting the change of colony number.

Product Features

• Convenience: The kit contains induction S9, reagents, and bacterial suspension for direct use.
• Accuracy: Each component of the kit undergoes rigorous quality testing to ensure accurate, reliable, and reproducible results.
• Stability: The kit has highly stability and is easy to transport and store.
• Wide application: The kit can be used for genotoxicity testing of foods, drugs, cosmetics, chemicals, pesticides, etc.

Mini-Ames Test Kits

Amerigo Scientific offers Ames Test kits in microplate format, which are modified version of the standard Ames test. In the mini-Ames test, 6-well plates are used instead of culture flasks with the same procedure as in the standard Ames test, thus ensuring a high degree of consistency with the standard Ames kit and greatly reducing the amount of substance required. Therefore, the Mini-Ames kits can be used for initial screening of mutagenicity detection.

Product Features

• High efficiency: Testing in 6-well metabolic culture plate greatly reduces the experimental workload.
• Consistency: The results of the test are highly consistent with those of the standard Ames test.
• Low usage amount: The amount of substance tested is only 20% of that used in the standard Ames test.
• High throughput: The kit can be used simultaneously for genotoxicity screening of multiple test substances.

Figure 1. Mini-Ames test results (strain WP2 uvrA pKM101)

Microtiter Fluctuation Ames Test Kits

The microtiter fluctuation Ames assay is developed based on the Ames fluctuation assay, which is performed in 96-well plates with a pH color change as the readout. Compared with standard Ames test, this method has enhanced sensitivity and greatly reduced amount of test substance.

Amerigo Scientific provides the Microtiter Fluctuation Ames Test Kit as a rapid genotoxicity screening solution. In the kit, TA98 and TA100 strains are used as test strains. The bacteria are cultured in 96-well plates, and the genotoxicity of the test substances is evaluated by counting the number of wells with color change or directly using a microplate reader. This assay avoids the time-consuming colony counting process and provides highly sensitive results.

Product Features

• High sensitivity
• Low usage amount
• High-throughput

Figure 2. TA100 Microtiter Fluctuation Ames Test Results

Ames Strain Identification Kits

Strain identification is an important part of the Ames test. All the strains used in Ames test are auxotrophic strains, and some of their characteristics are easily lost or mutated during use. The genotypes of the strains must be confirmed to ensure that the characteristics of the strains meet the requirements of Ames test.

Amerigo Scientific offers reliable kits for the identification of commonly used Ames bacterial strains. These strain identification kits can be used to identify strains with histidine/tryptophan deficiency, lipopolysaccharide barrier deficiency, ampicillin resistance (R factor), tetracycline resistance, and ultraviolet light (uvrB) repair deficiency.

Table 1. Standards for the identification of biological characteristics of commonly used Ames test strains

"+": positive; "-": negative; "N/A": identification not required.

umu Test Kits

The umu test, also known as SOS/umu test, is a short-term screening test for the genotoxic potential of chemical substances. This mothed is developed based on the SOS response and umu C gene expression induced by DNA damage. The umu test is widely used in environment monitoring for high-throughput screening of environmental samples such as drinking water, soil extracts, and air pollutants due to its simplicity and rapidity.

Amerigo Scientific provides the umu kit with Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/Psk1002 as the test strain and 4-NQO as the positive control. The umu test can be used to quantitatively measure the amount of induced enzyme in a 96-well plate to evaluate the presence and extent of DNA damage.

Figure 3. Umu Test Layout