Identification of Low-dose Irradiated Seeds using the Neutral Comet Assay

Detection of Irradiated Fresh Chicken, Pork and Fish using the DNA Comet Assay

“…At very high doses (10 kGy and more) the tail may be separated from the head and have the appearance of a cloud (many short DNA fragments). The comet assay has been used for detecting irradiated food (5-7), irradiated seeds (8,9), in cancer research and in genetic toxicology (10). In fresh meat and fish, DNA degradation is a natural process that takes place in the cells after death.…”

Evaluation of irradiation in foods using DNA Comet assay

“…Moreover, storage time and environmental toxicologies particularly for fresh food stuff may also cause DNA degradation and mislead the result of analysis. Hence, positive results should be confirmed by other radiation specific identification methods (Koppen and Cerda 1996;Cerda et al 1997;Huachaca et al 2002;Khan et al 2002bKhan et al , 2005Villavicencio et al 2004).…”

“…DNA Comet assay provides an inexpensive, rapid, convenient, simple, qualitative and to some extent quantitative method for the irradiation detection of varieties of foods, which are exposed to even low radiation absorbed doses. This assay has increasingly been recognized as a valuable tool for regulatory studies (Koppen and Cerda 1996;Delincee 1998;Park et al 2000;Villavicencio et al 2000Villavicencio et al , 2004Khan et al 2002a;Huachaca et al 2005;Kumaravel and Jha Awadhesh 2006;Cutrubinis et al 2007).…”

Assessment of DNA strand breaks induced by bleomycin in barley by the comet assay

“…Several protocols for the comet assay in plants based on neutral procedure have been used up to now [Koppen and Cerda, 1997;Koppen and Angelis, 1998;Koppen et al, 1999]. One disadvantage of the N/N assay, namely the relatively moderate increase of DNA content in the comet tail, is usually surmounted either by electrophoresis under higher pH [Fortini et al, 1996;Koppen and Angelis, 1998] or trough alteration of lyses duration and temperature [Olive et al, 1991[Olive et al, , 1993Banath et al, 1998;Olive, 1998;Singh and Stephens, 1998;Singh, 2000;Wojewodzka et al, 2002].…”

“…Initial applications of the comet assay in plants were directed toward the impact of IR on seed disinfection and preservation from diseases and pathogens [Cerda et al, 1993Koppen and Cerda, 1997]. Studies on DSB induction usually display relatively low sensitivity of the assay under neutral conditions (neutral lyses/neutral electrophoresis, N/N protocol).…”