| Summary: | No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author. A growing concern over the presence of genotoxins in marine media, there is a rising need to elaborate sensitive methods for the assessment genetic damage in indigenous organisms. It has been developed different methods for the detection of both double- and single-strand breaks of DNA, DNA-adducts, micronuclei formation, chromosome aberrations. The micronucleus (MN) test has been widely used in vivo assay and was proved as simple to perform, sensitive enough and fast test to detect genomic alterations due to clastogenic effects and impairments of mitotic spindle caused by aneuploidogenic poisons. Main objective of the present study is to identify regularities of genotoxicity in marine indigenous organisms in situ, under experimental caging, deployment and laboratory conditions. Peculiarities of MN formation were investigated in various cells of fish and mussel species inhabiting geographically and ecologically different zones of the Baltic and North Seas. Active monitoring approach (fish and mussel caging) applied to assess MN induction in certain polluted areas of the North Sea. MN test validation was performed in multiple controlled exposures at IRIS (Norway) marine experimental center. The wide-range MN investigations indicated specific responses in relation to species, tissue, environmental temperature, contaminant type and concentration, duration of exposure, distance from contamination source. Furthermore micronuclei formation in the blue mussels was approximately 10-fold higher than in studied fish species (cod, flounder, turbot, perch, eelpout and wrasse). This variation in the levels of MN can be explained by the differences in invertebrate and vertebrate metabolism, DNA repair and in the rate of damaged cell recruitment.
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