BACKGROUND Comet assay and micronucleus test have been used increasingly to evaluate the genotoxicity of many metals and their organic compounds in aquatic ecosystems. The use of endemic aquatic organisms as biological sentinels has proved useful in environmental monitoring. In this study, the genetic damage caused by methylmercury (MeHg) in Aequidens tetramerus (commonly called acará-sela) was...

1. Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Materials and methods 3.1. Main reagents and cell culture 3.2. MTT assay 3.3. Comet assay 3.4. Cell cycle analysis by flow cytometry 3.5. The Caspase-3 colorimetric activity assay 3.6. Statistical analysis 4. Results 4.1. MTT assay 4.2. Comet assay 4.3. FCM assay the distribution of cell cycle and cell apoptosis 4.4. The expression of Caspase-3 5. Discussion 6. Ac...

Meteor showers on the Earth occur at well known times, and are associated with the decay of comets or other minor bodies whose orbital paths pass close to the Earth’s trajectory. On the surface, determining the closest proximity of two orbital paths appears to be a computationally intensive procedure. This paper describes a simple geometric method for determining the proximity between the orbit...

Arsenic and lead, known to have genotoxic and mutagenic effects, are ubiquitously distributed in the environment. The presence of arsenic in drinking water has been a serious health problem in many countries. Human exposure to these metals has also increased due to rapid industrialization and their use in formulation of many products. Liposuction material is a rich source of stem cells. In the ...

The comet assay can distinguish small differences in DNA damage between different samples of cells, implying that statistical tests are important to assess whether this occurs by chance. Excellent scholarly papers with concise descriptions of statistical analysis and recommendations for tests have been published (Lovell et al., 1999; Lovell and Omori, 2008). We often come across publications th...

Organisms in polluted areas can be exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals; however, exposure to genotoxic contaminants can be particularly devastating. DNA damage can lead to necrosis, apoptosis, or heritable mutations, and therefore has the potential to impact populations as well as individuals. Single cell gel electrophoresis (the comet assay) is a simple and sensitive technique used to exa...

Cinnamomum verum is used to make the spice cinnamon and has been used as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine. We evaluated the effects and the molecular mechanisms of cuminaldehyde (CuA), a constituent of the bark of Cinnamomum verum, on human lung squamous cell carcinoma NCI-H520 cells. Specifically, cell viability was evaluated by colorimetric assay; cytotoxicity by LDH release; apoptosis w...

The comet assay (single-cell gel electrophoresis) has been established as a simple, rapid, flexible and sensitive method of detecting DNA damage in single cells(1,2). Cells embedded in agarose on a microscope slide are lysed with detergent. Electrophoresis at high pH results in structures resembling comets, observed by fluorescence microscopy; the intensity of the comet tail relative to the hea...