The mutagenicity and carcinogenicity of the important commodity chemical 1,3-butadiene are attributed to the epoxide products. We confirmed our previous work showing that expression of rat glutathione (GSH) transferase 5-5 enhances the mutagenicity of butadiene diepoxide in Salmonella typhimurium TA1535. A GSH-butadiene diepoxide conjugate was isolated and fully characterized by mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance as S-(2-hydroxy-3,4-epoxybutyl)GSH. The conjugate had a t(½) of 2.6 h (pH 7.4, 37 °C) and was considerably more mutagenic than butadiene diepoxide or monoepoxide in S. typhimurium. We propose that the GSH conjugate may be a major species involved in butadiene genotoxicity, not a detoxication product.