Cytogenetic biomarkers of carbofuran toxicity utilizing human lymphocyte cultures in vitro

Short-term lymphocyte cultures from human peripheral blood samples were incubated with various aliquots of the carbofuran pesticide. After 48 h of initiation and 24 h of exposure to the carbofuran pesticide aliquots, it was seen that carbofuran caused an increase in the frequency of chromosomal aberrations, and the increase was significant (p < 0.05) in treated samples compared to controls. Karyotype analysis revealed more satellite associations, gaps, and breaks in treated samples. Single-strand breaks in the DNA assessed by comet assay revealed that the pesticide caused increase in the comet tail length implicating genotoxicity in somatic cells. The LD(50) of carbofuran was found to be 18 microM as calculated by probit analysis and determined by trypan blue dye exclusion method. The results presented here indicate that in vitro assays could be used as indicators of cyto- and genotoxicity of the pesticide, and their end points could be used as biomarkers.