Genotoxic potentials and related mechanisms of bisphenol A and other bisphenol compounds: A comparison study employing chicken DT40 cells Sangwoo Lee a , Xiaoshan Liu a , Shunichi Takeda b , Kyungho Choi a,⇑ a School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea b Department of Radiation Genetics, Graduate school of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan highlights  Bisphenol A and alternative bisphenols showed genotoxic potentials in DT40 cells.  Their mechanisms involve double strand breaks rescued by homologous recombination.  RAD54 / DT40 mutant cells were the most hypersensitive to most bisphenols.  Genotoxic potential was confirmed by chromosomal aberration and c- H2AX foci. graphical abstract article info Article history: Received 12 December 2012 Received in revised form 30 April 2013 Accepted 5 May 2013 Available online 18 June 2013 ="k0025">RAD54 Keywords: Polycarbonate DT40 cell Homologous recombination Double strand break RAD54 abstract Bisphenol A (BPA) has been found in plastic food containers, paper currencies and toys. BPA has been reported for various adverse health concerns including reproduction, development and carcinogenesis. These potential health implications have led to increasing use of alternative bisphenols such as bisphenol F and bisphenol S among many. However, little is known about the toxicity of alternative bisphenols and most of the toxicological information is limited to endocrine disrupting potentials. In this study, we eval- uated cytotoxicity and the genotoxic potentials of several bisphenol compounds, and identified the mech- anism of genotoxicity using a panel of mutant chicken DT40 cell lines deficient in DNA repair pathways. Several bisphenols including bisphenol AP, bisphenol M, or bisphenol P exerted genotoxic potentials that are greater than that of BPA. Generally RAD54 / mutant cells were the most sensitive to all bisphenols except for bisphenol F, suggesting the induction of DNA double-strand breaks that could be rescued by homologous recombination. Genotoxic potential of bisphenols was confirmed by chromosomal aberra- tion assay and c-H2AX foci forming assay between wild-type and RAD54 / mutant. Among the tested bisphenols, BPP at 12.5 lM showed the greatest genotoxic potency, inducing chromosomal aberration and c-H2AX foci in RAD54 / mutant by 2.6 and 4.8 folds greater than those in wild-type, respectively. Our results clearly show several alternative bisphenols can cause genotoxicity that could be rescued by homologous recombination pathway, and some bisphenols induced even greater genotoxic potentials than that of BPA. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.05.029 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Gwanak, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea. Tel.: +82 2 880 2738; fax: +82 2 745 9104. E-mail address: Kyungho@snu.ac.kr (K. Choi). Chemosphere 93 (2013) 434–440 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Chemosphere journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere