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| Toxicity Summary |
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| Link to the Distributed Structure-Searchable Toxicity (DSSTox) Database |
| IDENTIFICATION AND USE: Dimethylamine (DMA) is a colorless gas. It is used as acid-gas absorbent, solvent antioxidants, manufacture of dimethylformamide and dimethylacetamide, dyes, flotation agent, gasoline stabilizers, pharmaceuticals, textile chemicals, rubber accelerators, electroplating, dehairing agent, missile fuels, pesticide propellant, rocket propellants, surfactants, reagent for magnesium. HUMAN STUDIES: Workers in a foundry complaining of breathlessness and choking were found to be exposed to 1-46 mg/cu m DMA in the air. Vision has become misty and halos have appeared several hours after workmen have been exposed to the vapors of DMA at concentration too low to cause discomfort or disability during several hours of exposure. The edema of the corneal epithelium, which is principally responsible for the disturbance of vision, clears spontaneously by the next day, but after exceptionally intense exposures the edema and blurring have taken several days to clear and have been accompanied by photophobia and discomfort from roughness of the corneal surface. ANIMAL STUDIES: A 6% solution of DMA, when applied to the skin of rabbits, caused reddening, then thickening and ulceration after a single treatment. A 3% solution produced similar effects after five treatments. A 5% DMA solution dropped once on rabbit eye caused hemorrhages in conjunctiva, corneal edema, and superficial opacities. A drop of undiluted DMA placed on rabbit's cornea, with the lids then closed and no irrigation performed, caused the cornea to become whitish blue and translucent within few sec, then white as sclera in a min. DMA was a skin sensitizer in the guinea pig closed epicutaneous test. Histopathologic evaluation of the respiratory tract of rats exposed by inhalation at single concentrations ranging from 600 to 6000 ppm for 6 hr revealed concentration-related changes ranging from ulceration and necrosis to rhinitis, tracheitis, and emphysema. Mice exposed at 813 to 1626 ppm DMA had ocular and respiratory irritation and that cyanosis, convulsions, and death occurred above 5420 ppm. Pathologic evaluation revealed massive hemorrhages near the periphery of the lungs and peripheral emphysema in those mice that died during exposure. Small hemorrhages were found in the lungs of mice sacrificed 20 days postexposure. In a repeated exposure study, mice were exposed by inhalation 6 hours/day for 5 days at 511 ppm of DMA. Body weight decreased by 10% to 25% in all animals, and 3 of 24 mice died during exposure. Nasal lesions were observed in these animals. DMA was not carcinogenic by the inhalation in mice and rats. DMA was weakly mutagenic in Salmonella typhimurium strain TA 1530 in the presence of metabolic activation. No mutagenic activity occurred without activation, and no activity was found in a host-mediated assay in mice. |
| Source: DrugBank or Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) |