engleski

The frequency of micronuclei in mononucleated and binucleated lymphocytes as an indicator of acute or chronic occupational exposure

Over the last two decades the micronucleus assay has become an importante method in the estimation of genome damage in humans. The advantage of this method is its potential for detection of both clastogenic and aneugenic mechanisms. Micronuclei are mostly analysed in binucleated lymphocytes. The extension of micronuclesu count to mononuclear lymphocytes could provide new data for biomonitoirng purposes and therefore our study was done on both types of lymphocytes simultaneoulsy in subjects occupationally exposed to genotoxic agents. In order to evaluate this approach our study included 20 subjects exposed to gamma radiation and 25 subjects exposed to vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). The analysis was peroformed on 72 h lymphocyte cell culture with cytochalasin B as cytokinesis blocking agent. The mean value of micronucleus frequency of binucleated lymphocytes in subjects exposed to VCM was 7, 4% and in mononucleated lymphocytes 1, 1 %. In the population exposed to gamma radiation mena value in binucleated cells was 4, 6 % and in mononucleated lymphocytes 1, 4%. In both types of exposures micrnuclei frequency was significantly higher than in controls. The results show negative correlation between micronuclei frquency in monoclueated and binucleated lymphocytes for both agents. Although the model should be evaluated on a larger population, the observed results confirmed its value as additional information in risk assessment.

micronucleus assay ; chronic exposure ; acute exposure ; vinyl chloride monomer ; gamma radiation

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