BAYESIAN MODELLING AND INFERENCE OF MIXTURES OF DISTRIBUTIONS OF MICRONUCLEAR BUCCAL CELLS IN THE POPULATION OF...

Malignant tumors are one of the leading courses of mortality in the world, and it is believed that 19% of malignant tumors are associated with environmental risk factors. The aim of the study was to establish the spectrum of distributions of an informative biomarker of the unfavorable (genotoxic) effect of the external environment on the body by determining the level of micronuclei (LMN) in buccal epithelium cells in populations of villages of the Sachkhera region (Georgia). In the inhabitants of the Sachkhere district (both sexes, 50-65 years old) living in the villages of Sareki, Sairkhe, and Chorvila, LMN was determined in the cells of the buccal epithelium. The statistical significance of the difference in LML between the village population was assessed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Dixon's Q test was used to identify abnormal micronuclei. The χ2 criterion was used to assess the normality of LMN distributions among residents of the villages. The distribution of the population by LMN indicators in each individual village was described as the distribution of a two-component mixture. The statistical significance of the difference between the Gaussian means of the mixture components was assessed using the Z-test. To analyze the data and visualize the results, the SPSS and Open BUGS software packages were used. Differences in the LMN of the buccal epithelium in the studied populations were revealed, which may be due to the influence of external environmental factors: in Sareki, the effect of a certain (unidentified) clearly expressed genotoxic factor (both in terms of intensity and scale of exposure) was revealed, which is accompanied by a sharp increase in LMN, while in Chorvila and Sairkhe the presence of an inducing factor is not recorded and LMN remained practically within the norms. The identification of the causal relationship between the nature of the distributions of the used biomarkers and the specificity of the incidence of the population in the villages, as well as the possible contribution of unfavorable environmental factors, is the subject of further research.