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Measurement of DNA Damage in ICR Mouse Embryos at Preimplantation Stage Using a Comet Assay
Author(s) -
MARUYAMA Asako,
KUSAMA Tomoko
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
congenital anomalies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1741-4520
pISSN - 0914-3505
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4520.1998.tb00817.x
Subject(s) - comet assay , embryo , dna damage , comet , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , embryonic stem cell , gel electrophoresis , andrology , irradiation , dna , genetics , medicine , physics , astrobiology , gene , nuclear physics
Recent studies on embryos irradiated during the preimplantation period, especially 2 hours post conception (2 hpc), have shown that the sensitivities of external malformations as well as embryonic death were likely to be higher than that of mice irradiated at the stage of organogenesis. In this study, the embryos were irradiated with γ‐rays at 2 hpc and the DNA damage in embryos at 26 hpc was measured with a comet assay, that is, an alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis. The comet assay has been applied to single cells such as lymphocytes and bone marrow cells. We improved the procedure for measuring the DNA damage of two‐cell embryos (26 hpc embryos). The frequencies of cells without comet tails in embryos irradiated with 0.5 and 1.0 Gy decreased statistically significantly in comparison with those in non‐irradiated embryos. The comet assay could be useful in the measurement of DNA damage for embryonic effects during the preimplantation period.