A bioassay-guided approach to the isolation and identification of potentially-mutagenic compounds in marine lipids

Abstract

A significant amount of the total organically bound chlorine found in the marine environment has not been identified. A large portion of this unidentified organochlorine has been found to be associated with the lipids of marine organisms. If these unknown compounds are biologically active, then their presence may have negative consequences for the animal. Extracts from the blubber of seals from Newfoundland and from the blubber of seals and beluga whales from St. Lawrence River were tested for mutagenic activity using the Ames test before and after GPC fractionation in order to attempt to identify fractions containing mutagenic activity. However, no significant mutagenic activity was present in either case, although the whole lipid extracts were able to cause a higher number of revertant colonies than the fractionated samples. The presence of known organochlorine compounds were confirmed in the beluga whale samples by acid hydrolysis followed by GCI EI MS analysis. Details of methodologies and results of this work will be presented.