Genotoxicity tests for monitoring cytogenetic effects effect assessment

32 Genotoxicity tests for monitoring cytogenetic effects (effect assessment) 

The extent of cytogenetic damage induced by contaminant exposure can be quantified through the analysis of shifts in the incidence of micronuclei or through the study of shifts in genome size distribution or variation in chromosome number or structure (Bickham, 1994). 

A number of factors constrain the usefulness of this test, i.e. variability between gender, age and strain, and its limited sensitivity. 

Novel methods to detect effects at population level. Ecogenotoxicology has been described as an approach that applies the principles and techniques of genetic toxicology to assess the potential of environmental pollution, in the form of genotoxic agents, on the health of the ecosystem (Shugart and Theodorakis, 

Molecular techniques allow the evaluation of molecular-level (DNA and RNA) variation in populations. Most techniques use the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify short nucleotide sequences from small amounts of tissues. With DNA techniques, one can examine neutral markers (non-coding regions widely dispersed over the entire genome) or patterns at coding loci (regions that are essential for functional differences in important proteins or for gene expression). Also, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) (see Lecrenier and Foury, 2000) has 

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