Question

15. If you were asked to set up an Ames test for your chemical company, would you use Salmonella Strain A and/or Strain B? Briefly explain your reasoning,

Answer 1

Ames test is a toxicology test which was invented by by the scientist Bruce Ames and his colleagues at University of California.Pharmaceutical companies and research institutes use the test to check the carcinogenicity of a drug. Salmonella strains were used in the experiment. These strains were mutant and thus did not perform the usual histidine pathway. Thus normally when the bacteria is cultured and platted in a agar plate, there is no growth in the medium lacking histidine. But when the bacteria is mixed with some chemical, the bacteria shows a reversal behaviour. In this case, the agar plate shows grrowth of bacteria. In this way the potency and the level of carcinogenicity induced by the chemical can be studied.

Strain A of Salmonella is used for carrying out the Ames test because the strain can be mutated such that the histidine synthesis pathway gets interrupted which helps in the execution of the Ames test.