Abstract

The effects of dietary selenium deficiency and excess on N‐nitrosomethylbenzylamine‐(NMBA) induced esophageal neoplasia in rats and forestomach tumors in mice and the effects of dietary selenium on DNA adduct formation and on the activities of DNA adduct‐repairing enzyme and oncogene expression in rat esophagus were investigated. The esophageal and forestomach tumors were induced by administration of NMBA by gavage with a total dose of 39 mg/kg body wt in rats and 12 mg/kg body wt in mice. Neither selenium dietary deficiency (Se < 0.02 ppm) nor selenium excess (2.0 ppm) showed any significant effect on the incidence of tumors or number of tumors per tumor‐bearing animal. For the DNA adduct formation studies, rats were given a dose of NMBA intraperitoneally after six weeks on the different selenium‐containing diets. No significant difference in the amount of the DNA adduct O⁶‐methyldeoxyguanosine was found among the different selenium‐treated groups. In a parallel group of rats that did not receive NMBA, the levels of esophageal O⁶‐methyldeoxyguanosine DNA methyltransferase were not significantly altered by dietary selenium levels. The c‐myc oncogene expression in rat esophagus was induced by the administration of NMBA (3 mg/kg body wt) by gavage once a week for eight weeks. Dietary selenium did not show any effects on its expression. On the basis of the results of these studies, dietary selenium has no effects in the NMBA‐induced tumor model.