Although many studies related the toxic effects of pesticides on agricultural workers, little research has been done about agricultural area residents. The purpose of this work was to monitor the presence of pesticides, as well as their genotoxic and cytotoxic potential, in humans with blood samples collected from control and intensive agricultural areas in the Thrace region. Pesticide accumulations were determined by LC-MS/MS. Cytotoxicity and genotoxicity were analyzed by comet assay, and the effect of pesticide accumulation on oxidative stress, DNA repair, and molecular chaperone response were analyzed by qRT-PCR assays in the human blood samples. The agricultural area residents had a significantly higher concentration of pesticides than those in the control area at all three sampling times, and the total pesticide amounts were 4.3 and 10 times significantly higher in blood sampled in the pesticide use period (August 2015 and 2016, respectively) than in the nonuse period (November 2015). The results showed that the pesticide level in blood during the use period led to oxidative stress, DNA damage (mean comet length and % tail DNA), and unfolded/misfolded protein response. Particularly, in pesticide use season, difference between these parameters was found statistically significant with comparison to control. Our results indicate that individuals residing around a monoculture rice farming area comprise an at-risk group as a result of increased genotoxicity evidenced in human blood. We suggest that biological monitoring efforts should be used to control nonoccupational exposures to pesticides and thus safeguard the health of agricultural area residents.

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The present study aimed to investigate the genotoxic, cytotoxic and aneugenic effects of 1, 2, 3.75, 7.5, 15, 30 μM concentrations of the insecticides λ-cyhalothrin (LCT) and α-cypermethrin (CYP) on human peripheral blood lymphocyte culture using micronucleus (MN) and fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) methods. All the concentrations were tested to assess the MN and apoptosis effects, and 1 and 2 μM LCT and 7.5 and 15 μM CYP concentrations were tested for FISH analysis. The cytotoxic effect was also observed using trypan blue and the acridine orange/ethidium bromide fluorescence staining method to measure the apoptotic effect. It was observed that both of the insecticides had a cytotoxic effect at all the concentrations (p ≤ 0.001) and apoptotic effect for LCT at 15-30 μM (p ≤ 0.05; p ≤ 0.01) for CYP between 2 and 30 μM concentrations (p ≤ 0.05; p ≤ 0.01). The micronuclei that developed after exposure were induced because of an aneugenic effect (p ≤ 0.001). LCT and CYP might be spindle poisons or caused damaged to centromere/kinetochore function.

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