Effects of fume particles from stainless steel welding on sister chromatid exchanges and chromosome aberrations in cultured chinese hamster cells.

Abstract

The frequencies of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) and chromosome aberra-tions were examined in cultured Chinese hamster cells (Don) exposed to two sorts of fume particles collected from different procedures of stainless steel welding.It was confirmed that the frequencies of SCE and chromosome aberrations in the cells treated with these fume particles increased with increasing fume doses within the range of the fume concentration tested. The fume partticles collected from manual metal arc (MMA) welding were more powerful than those from metal inert gas (MIG) welding. In order to cause the same increase in SCE frequency the fume particles from MIG welding needed to be about 100 times as much as those from MMA welding. The fume particles from MMA welding showed a higher so-lubility of Cr than those from MIG welding. The amount of dissolved Cr from the former was about 60 times as much as that from the latter when culture medium was used as a solvent. Small amounts of Mn, Ni, Fe and Mg were also detected in the supernatants of both fume suspensions. There were no significant differences in the amounts of these metals as was found with Cr when comparing MMA weld-ing with MIG welding. The frequencies of SCE and chromosome aberrations were also increased by the addition of the supernatants of these suspensions.From these results, it was assumed that dissolved hexavalent Cr may be involved in the cytogenetic effect of the fume particles from stainless steel welding.