Spindle poisons can induce polyploidy by mitotic slippage and micronucleate mononucleates in the cytokinesis-block assay

The human in vitro cytokinesis-blocked micronucleus (MN) assay has been extensively used for detection of clastogenic and aneugenic agents. In this test binucleate cells are generally considered to be the main target cell population for assessing genotoxic effect and almost no attention is paid to the biological information contained in mono-nucleate cells. In this study we analysed the frequencies of micronucleate mononucleates in a control population and after in vitro exposure to clastogens or aneugens. A clear increase in MN in mononucleates was found only after exposure to aneugenic compounds. By means of fluorescence in situ hybridization using a chromosome 1-specific probe we further analysed the proportion of mononucleate cells with and without MN which were tetrasomic (tetraploid) and would have been induced during aneugen treatment by mitotic slippage. The data indicate that treatment with nocodazole induces tetrasomy for chromosome 1 (tetraploidy) and an increase in MN frequency in mononucleate diploid and tetraploid lymphocytes. The results thus confirm that some mononucleates pass mitosis without chromatid segregation to daughter nuclei. These data suggest that MN in mononucleates may be useful to distinguish clastogens from aneugens and increase the sensitivity of the test.