The Role of Organic Peroxides in the Induction of Mutations

The discovery by Wyss, Stone, and Clark' that bacteria grown on a substrate recently exposed to ultra-violet light are subject to high mutation rates shows clearly that some meta-stable chemical substance, probably of no great complexity, is an intermediate in at least a part of the mutagenic action of ultra-violet light. It was supposed that hydrogen peroxide might be responsible for these results, but subsequent work has shown that this cannot be the whole explanation. [2] However, organic peroxides are known to be formed by the action of ultra-violet light on many compounds and such peroxides might very well be the intermediate agents producing the substrate irradiation effect.