N,N-diethylphenylacetamide, an insect repellent: absence of mutagenic response in the in vitro Ames test and in vivo mouse micronucleus test.

N,N-diethylphenylacetamide (DEPA), a promising new insect repellent, was tested for mutagenicity in the in vitro Ames Salmonella/microsome mutagenicity test and the in vivo mouse micronucleus test. For the Ames test, DEPA was assayed both in the presence and absence of Aroclor 1254-induced rat-liver S-9 mix (5 and 20% S-9 fraction), using five tester strains of Salmonella typhimurium--TA97a, TA98, TA100, TA102 and TA104. For the micronucleus test, mice were exposed to DEPA through ip injection for 2 and 5 days in separate experiments, and bone marrow and peripheral blood were sampled 6 and 48 hr after the final injection, respectively. DEPA did not induce a mutagenic response in the Ames test, and mouse bone marrow and peripheral blood micronucleus tests. DEPA was not considered cytotoxic, as a depression of the percentage PCE was not observed at any dose in the range of 1 to 100 mg/kg body weight with either treatment protocol of the micronucleus test.