Ames Mutagenicity Assessment of Flavored Water Pipe Tobacco Products :A Cross Sectional Study in Tehran

Waterpipe smoking has become a global youth trend especially in the Middle East countries and Iran . The aim of this study was to determine the mutagenic effects of three most popular flavored tobaccos by four different salmonella typhimurium strains and compare the possible mutagenic effects of the test samples. Ames mutagenicity assessment was conducted according to the OECD guideline using TA100, TA98 , YG1024 and YG1029 strains. Charcoal burned flavored tobaccos of three different flavors including Orange, Double Apple, and Lime Mint were filtered and exposed to all strains after strain identification tests and MIC ,MBC determinations. The Ames test results indicated significant mutagenic effects of tobacco samples in all four test strains when compared with negative control (p≤0.0001). The highest Mutagenic Factor (MF) was seen in Double Apple samples using TA 98 (MF=11.5±3.3) . In all experiments, TA strains showed higher sensitivity to the samples than YG strains which suggest these two strains for further regulatory toxicity tests,policy making purposes and tobacco control programs . While mutagenic frequencies (MF) vary widely across studies, all test strains have indicated that flavored waterpipe tobacco smoke generates mutagenicity and possible carcinogenicity in humans which should be confirmed by further studies but we observed ‘A clear mutagenic response in Salmonella strains which is partially predictive for carcinogenic responses Despite the limitations of present work, these results may represent an important step in understanding the genotoxic potential of the most popular flavored tobaccos brands in the market of Tehran.