Toxicity and mutagenicity studies of 6PPD‐quinone in a marine invertebrate species and bacteria

Abstract N‐(1,3‐dimethylbutyl)‐N′‐phenyl‐p‐phenylenediamine‐quinone (6PPD‐quinone), an oxidation product of the tire additive, 6PPD, has been associated with high mortality of salmonids (0.1 μg/L). The objective of this study was to determine the acute toxicity using neonates and mutagenicity (micronuclei in hemolymph of exposed adults) of 6PPD‐quinone in the marine amphipod Parhyale hawaiensis . Also, we studied its mutagenicity in the Salmonella/microsome assay using five strains of Salmonella with and without metabolic system (rat liver S9, 5%). 6PPD‐quinone did not present acute toxicity to P. hawaiensis from 31.25 to 500 μg/L. Micronuclei frequency increased after 96 h‐exposure to 6PPD‐quinone (250 and 500 μg/L) when compared to the negative control. 6PPD‐quinone also showed a weak mutagenic effect for TA100 only in the presence of S9. We conclude that 6PPD‐quinone is mutagenic to P. hawaiensis and weakly mutagenic to bacteria. Our work provides information for future risk assessment of the presence of 6PPD‐quinone in the aquatic environment.