An illusion of hormesis in the Ames test: Statistical significance is not equivalent to biological significance

A recent report (Calabrese et al., Mutat. Res. 726 (2011) 91-97) concluded that an analysis of Ames test mutagenicity data provides evidence of hormesis in mutagenicity dose-response relationships. An examination of the data used in this study and the conclusions regarding hormesis reveal a number of concerns regarding the analyses and possible misinterpretations of the Salmonella data. The claim of hormesis is based on test data from the National Toxicology Program using Salmonella strain TA100. Approximately half of the chemicals regarded as hormetic, and the majority of the specific dose-responses identified as hormetic, were actually nonmutagenic. We conclude that the data provide no evidence of hormetic effects. The Ames test is an excellent measure of bacterial mutagenicity, but the numbers of revertant (mutant) colonies on the plate are the result of a complex interaction between mutagenicity and toxicity, which renders the test inappropriate for demonstrating hormesis in bacterial mutagenicity experiments.