Monitoring of Lymphocyte Micronuclei among Newborns from Kragujevac in Central Serbia before and after Environmental Contamination
OLIVERA MILOŠEVIC-DJORDJEVIC, DARKO GRUJICIC, SLOBODAN ARSENIJEVIC1 and DRAGOSLAV MARINKOVIC2
Faculty of Science, University of Kragujevac, 1Clinic of Gynecology, University of Kragujevac and 2Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
The air strikes on “Zastava” complex in Kragujevac, in the spring of 1999, caused extensive environmental pollution with damage to soil, water and air. Since the main problem was the leakage of several tones of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as well as heavy metals Cr and Ni into the environment and groundwater, we decided to evaluate influence of the environmental contamination on eventual changes of genetic constitution of human body cells. The subjects analyzed were 36 phenotypically healthy newborn babies, who were born 12 months (n = 22) and 18 months (n = 14) after environmental contamination, and 25 newborns in 1998 as a control group. For the assessment of mutagenic effects of environmental pollutants in vivo, the cytokinesis-block micronucleus test was employed. The results show significant increase of micronuclei (MN) in lymphocytes from newborns born 12 months after contamination (9.36 ± 5.60), in comparison to controls (5.53 ± 3.02) and newborns born 18 months after contamination (6.14 ± 3.57). Only 3 newborns (12%) out of 25 controls showed more than 1 MN/1000 binucleated cells in respect to 8/22 after 12 months (36%) and 2/14 after 18 months from contamination (14%). The mean number of binucleated cells with MN significantly varied in function of sex and environmental changes in newborns born 12 months after contamination (as demonstrated by the analysis of covariance F = 9.61, p < 0.003). After 18 months of contamination, environmental components had no noticeable effects on MN frequency (F = 0.5, p > 0.48). These results suggest that the exposure to environmental pollutants in utero affects genetic constitution of fetus and increases MN values in their body cells, which is detectable right after birth in peripheral blood lymphocytes.
keywords —— environmental contamination; micronuclei; newborns; peripheral blood lymphocytes
© 2005 Tohoku University Medical Press
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2005, 205, 1-9
Address for reprints: Olivera Miloševic-orevic, Institute of Biology, Department of Genetics, Faculty of Science, University of Kragujevac, Radoja Domanovica 12, P.O. Box 60, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro.
e-mail: olivera@knez.uis.kg.ac.yu