Optimizing of a sensitive method for detection of hazardous agents in the environment.
Ekaterina Peycheva, George Miloshev
Institute of Molecular Biology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev, bl.21, Sofia, 1113, Bulgaria
Comet assay or Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis (SCGE) is a sensitive method for assessing genotoxins on a single cell level. It reveals DNA damage caused by different chemicals or physical agents. We developed a variant of the assay applicable on yeast cells and named it Yeast Comet Assay (YCA). It turned out that the Comet assay on yeast cells could detect genotoxins in nanomolar concentrations probaly due to the higher sensitivity of yeast nuclear DNA to the action of the tested chemicals. This challenged us to develop a test on the basis of the YCA in order to assess very little quantities of DNA damaging agents. Such a YCA based test could have many applications in probing environmental elements (water, soil), food products, cloths , etc. for hazardous substances. Now, we are attempting to set up a YCA based ready-to-use kit for broader applications.