DNA Damage Is A Biomarker Of Radiation Effects

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DNA damage is a proven biomarker of radiation effects. Cytogenetic techniques commonly employed for detecting DNA strand breakages include chromosome aberrations, micronucleus and comet assay under field and laboratory circumstances. In recent times, flow cytometry (FCM) has been widely used to quantify DNA damage since it offers the analysis of a high number of nuclei in a few minutes providing statistically reliable results in a short period of time. Ideally, all cells within an organism contain the same amount of DNA. DNA damage results from the breakage and rearrangement of chromosomes and from interference with the normal segregation of chromosome during cell division. Double strand breaks are the most important DNA lesions caused by ionizing radiation and other damages from exposure to genotoxic agents resulting in cells with an abnormally high or low DNA content. This variability can be detected as an increased coefficient of variation (CV) of cells in G0/G1 phase as measured by flow cytometry.
Alternately, appearance of aneuploid cell populations as a result of mitotic machi...

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