I hadn't heard of this one before today: Mutagen X.
Mutagen X is apparently a byproduct of water chlorination, which isn't so surprising - chloroform (CHCl3) can occur in chlorinated water. This MX stuff is much worse, apparently. Anyone know the immediate source of the carbon?
More like this
In one of the most important papers in population genetics, Begun and Aquadro showed that levels of DNA sequence polymorphism are positively correlated with recombination rate. There are three ways of interpreting this result:
Tonight's Nat Geo special about the Gulf Oil Spill and its lasting impacts looked interesting enough. Then I recognized the talking lab rat in it: Brian Zielinski, a classmate of mine from undergrad at Eckerd College.
It's been a while since I brought everyone up to date on the progress of my Ecological Development course, because I've been busy. So have the students. After our spring break I subjected them to the dreaded oral exam, which actually isn't so bad.
Not all regions of the genome are equal in the eyes of evolution. For example, natural selection is more effective on genes in regions of higher recombination.
As with chloroform, the carbon source is usually humic acids.
I'm a water engineer (BS in Chem Eng, MS in Environmental Eng). I'm not sure, but I would guess that the carbon comes from humic or fulvic acids, i.e. NOM (natural organic matter) that is naturally present in surface water, and occasionally groundwater. It's not a single simple molecule, it's a whole family of complex organic soup. I personally haven't heard of Mutagen X, though there are all kinds of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) out there. Chloroform is the most common. THMs (trihalomethanes, of which chloroform is obviously one) and HAAs (haloacetic acids) are the ones that are regulated by the SDWA (safe drinking water act). Is that enough TLAs for you? (three letter acronyms)
Yeah, I've read the "humic acid" explanation, and maybe I'm showing my ignorance, but can't we do a little better? Five-membered lactenones always remind me of ascorbate. Anyone have any idea what the real precursor is? It can't be that diverse a range of substrates for transformation by what amounts to chlorine radical.
This would be a good theme for a science-fiction story, IMHO...
Looks like the carbon could have come from an isoprene, but those can come from practically anywhere.
I remember the story in Peru where they were worried about trihalomethanes causing cancer in drinking water. So they stopped chlorinating the water for a while, and many died from water-borne bacterial diseases. I'd rather drink THM's than, say, cryptosporidium, etc.
Compare Mutagen X, structure and steric bulk, with that of Vioxx,
http://www.worldofmolecules.com/drugs/Rofecoxib.png
A little lab work toward the intersection would be interesting. Furanones can be scccharide degradation products. To what does Splenda pyrolyze at cooking, baking, and crust-browning temps?