An alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay for environmental biomonitoring with native rodents

By J. Silva, T. Freitas, J. R. Marinho, G. Speit, B. Erdtmann. 2000

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The main advantages of single-cell gel electrophoresis (SCG) are its applicability to any eukaryotic organism and cell type, it s low cost and the short time required to obtain results. These properties make the SCG assay particularly useful in screening for environ mental genotoxicity. The present study describes a modified version of this technique for use in field work with native rodents and ex amines some factors which influence the outcome of the assay. Wild rodents ( Ctenomys torquatus, “tuco-tuco”) from a region close to a strip coal mine and from a region with no coal mines were used. Animals from the coal mining region had significantly more DNA damage than those from the control area. The use of this SCG technique for direct sampling in the field should facilitate environmental genotoxic ity studies with natural populations, without the need to remove the animals from their habitat or to sacrifice them.

Subfields: Cancer Research, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Small Animals

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d69194c3a9ab38933931663fc8b6ac4942df30e8