The use of 17-beta-oestradiol,
testosterone,
progesterone,
zearanol,
trenbolone acetate and melengesterol
acetate in animal feed as growth promoters has been banned in the European Union since 1989. However, the data available on their genotoxicity is limited. To bridge this gap the present study was carried out with the aim of evaluating these
hormones for their ability to induce
aneuploidy.
Aneuploidy has been recently considered sufficiently important to be included in the routine testing of chemicals and radiation. These types of numerical
chromosomal aberrations may arise by at least two mechanisms, chromosome loss and non-disjunction. Over the past few years, the cytokinesis blocked micronucleus (CBMN) technique has evolved into a robust assay for the detection of
aneuploidy induction. At the present time, it is the only assay which can reliably detect both chromosome loss and non-disjunction when the basic methodology is coupled with appropriate molecular probing techniques such as immunoflourescent labelling of kinetochores and Fluorescence in situ Hybridisation. In this present study,
aneuploidy induction by three groups of
hormones was studied using CBMN assay coupled with Fluorescence in situ Hybridisation. The results from the present study demonstrate that 17-beta-oestradiol, diethylstilboestrol,
progesterone and
testosterone are genotoxic and induce
aneuploidy by non-disjunctional mechanism, whereas
trenbolone is also genotoxic by a clastogenic mechanism. However, melengesterol
acetate and
zearanol proved to be non-genotoxic in vitro.