BACKGROUND The mechanisms by which smoking induces damage is not known for all diseases. One mechanism believed to play a role is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress leads to cellular damage including DNA damage, particularly DNA breaks. We conducted this study to test the hypothesis that smokers have increased DNA breaks in their circulating leukocytes. METHODS A comparative quantification of...

Human faecal waters from 35 healthy non-smoking volunteers (23 from England and 12 from Sweden) consuming their habitual diet were screened for genotoxicity by the single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay using a human colon adenocarcinoma cell line (CACO-2) as the target. Hydrogen peroxide induced DNA damage was categorized as low, intermediate or high for tail moments greater than 5, 17 ...

This study aimed to establish a protocol for cell dissociation from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) to assess the genotoxicity of the environmental pollutant benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) using the alkaline version of the single cell electrophoresis assay (comet assay). BaP genotoxicity was assessed in C. elegans (wild-type [WT]; N2, Bristol) after 48h exposure (0-40μM). Induction of co...

Diabatic states for donor (D) and acceptor (A) interactions in electron transfer (ET) processes are formulated and evaluated, along with coupling elements (H(DA)) and effective D/A separation distances (r(DA)), for reduced electronic spaces of variable size, using the generalized Mulliken Hush model (GMH), applicable to an arbitrary state space and nuclear configuration, and encompassing Robin-...

Salts of divalent cadmium are well-known human mutagens and carcinogens. In the present work, the ability of vitamin C to modulate genotoxic effects of cadmium chloride on human lymphocytes was assessed using single cell gel electrophoresis (comet assay). Vitamin C at 20 and 100 micromol/l and cadmium at 5, 30 and 150 micromol/l significantly increased the tail moment of lymphocytes. Vitamin C ...

1. The centre of area of the wings of a Harris' hawk gliding freely in a wind tunnel moved forward 0.09 wing chord lengths when the hawk increased its wing span from 0.68 to 1.07 m. The movement of the centre of area probably produces a positive pitching moment that, if unopposed, would cause the bird's head to rise. The tail remained folded until wing span reached 87 % of maximum and then bega...

Fine airborne respirable particulates less than 10 micrometer (PM10) are considered one of the top environmental public health concerns, since they contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are among the major carcinogenic compounds found in urban air. The objective of this study is to assess the genotoxicity of the ambient PM10 collected at 11 urban sites in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. T...

BACKGROUND Latent genetic instability has been associated with an increased risk for several cancers. We used the comet assay (single-cell gel electrophoresis) to assess whether genetic instability, as reflected by susceptibility to DNA damage, was associated with the risk of bladder cancer in a case-control study. METHODS We used the comet assay to measure baseline and benzo[a]pyrene diol ep...

The overwhelming majority of studies that have found increased cancer risk associated with functional deficits in DNA repair used a case-control design, in which measurements were made after cancer diagnosis. However, there are concerns about whether the cancer itself or cancer treatment affected the conclusions (reverse causation bias). We assessed the effect of cancer diagnosis among 26 breas...