Mutagenicity of alkaline constituents of a coal-liquified crude oil in mammalian cells.

Employing the CHO/HGPRT system, we have shown that the acetone fraction of a crude coal--liquid crude oil is the major contributor to the mutagenicity of synthetic oil. The system appears to be useful for determination of mutagenicity of organic mixtures and for corroboration of results from other biological assays.