The alkylating potential of beta-propiolactone (BPL), beta-butyrolactone (BBL), gamma-butyrolactone, and delta-valerolactone, which can be formed by the in vivo nitrosation of primary amino acids, was investigated kinetically. The nucleophile NBP, 4-(p-nitrobenzyl)pyridine, a trap for alkylating agents, was used as an alkylation substrate. The alkylation reactions were performed under mimicked cellular conditions at neutral pH in water/dioxane solvent mixtures. To gain insight into the effect of the hydrolysis of lactones on their alkylating efficiency, alkylation and competing hydrolysis were studied in parallel. Conclusions were drawn as follows: (i) gamma-Butyrolactone and delta-valerolactone afford neither appreciable NBP alkylation nor hydrolysis reactions; (ii) the alkylating potential of BPL is 10-fold higher than that of BBL, the reactivity of both being essentially enthalpy-controlled; (iii) a correlation was found between the alkylating potential of lactones and their carcinogenicity; (iv) the hydrolysis of lactones is not sufficiently effective to prevent alkylation; (v) the efficiency of alkylation, expressed as the alkylation rate/hydrolysis rate ratio, decreases strongly with increasing amounts of dioxane in the reaction media; (vi) the absorption coefficients of the NBP-lactone adducts are as follows: epsilon(NBP-BPL) = 5101 +/- 111 M(-1) cm(-1) (lambda = 584 nm) and epsilon(NBP-BBL) = 462 +/- 19 M(-1) cm(-1) (lambda = 586 nm), the pronounced difference between these values being rationalized in terms of the adducts' structure; and (vii) linear correlations exist between the adducts' absorption coefficients and the water/dioxane ratio in the reaction media.