DNA fragmentation as a bioindicator of peat fires’ smoke exposure

Introduction. The impact of combustion products of organic substances on the body is known to be accompanied by the accumulation of DNA damage, which can lead to mutations and pathological changes in the cell and the whole organism. The prevalence and scale of this phenomenon poses an important task for studying the consequences that occur in smoke-exposed organisms and their offspring.

Materials and methods. The conditions of real peat smoke were reproduced for 40 minutes with a CO concentration of 99±2.5 mg/m³ with using of experimental bio modelling. The genotoxicity of peat fire smoke after exposure to male white rats was assessed by the occurrence of DNA damage in blood cells using the DNA comet method in the alkaline version. In the first part of the experiment, males were directly exposed to the smoke of a peat fire; in the second part — their sexually mature offspring of both sexes were examined for the occurrence of DNA damage in blood cells.

Results. The males of the parental generation and offspring were found to be resistant to the effects of smoke components, which was confirmed by the absence of statistical significance in terms of «% DNA in the comet tail» compared with the control. At the same time, females of the received generation showed a statistically significant increase in blood cell DNA damage compared to the control group.

Limitations. The study was limited to the study of DNA fragmentation after a single 40-minute exposure to peat smoke in male white rats and their intact offspring.

Conclusion. The data obtained in this investigation indicate that damage to the DNA structure in the offspring of male rats exposed to peat smoke containing CO at a concentration of 99±2.5 mg/m³ can be considered as a bioindicator of genotoxic effects induced in the next generation.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee of the East Siberian Institute of Medical and Environmental Research (Protocol of the LC of the FSBI VSIMEI No. 32/19 of 09/10/2019), conducted in accordance with the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrates Used for Experiments or Other Scientific Purposes (ETS N 123), directive of the European Parliament and the Council Of the European Union 2010/63/EC of 22.09.2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.

Contribution:
Tyutrina V.A. — literature search, experiment, writing, statistical processing, article design;
Sosedova L.M. — concept, writing, discussion of relevance and results, responsibility for the integrity of all parts of the article;
Vokina V.A. — concept, experiment, statistical processing, article design.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgment. The work was carried out according to the research plan within the framework of the state task and supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the grant No. 075-15-2020-787 for implementation of Major scientific projects on priority areas of scientific and technological development (the project «Fundamentals, methods and technologies for digital monitoring and forecasting of the environmental situation on the Baikal natural territory»).

Received: May 10, 2023 / Accepted: June 7, 2023 / Published: August 30, 2023