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Published on: September 19, 2019
Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Induce DNA Damage in Sand Dollar Scaphechinus mirabilis Sperm
Sergey Petrovich Kukla1, Victor Pavlovich Chelomin1, Andrey Alexandrovich Mazur1
1Il'ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 690041 Vladivostok, Russia.
Abstract:
Products containing nanomaterials are becoming more and more common in everyday life. Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs), meanwhile, are among the most widely used NPs. However, their genotoxic effect on the germ products of marine organisms is poorly understood. Therefore, the effects of ZnO NPs and zinc ions (20, 50, 100, 200 µg/L) on the sperm of sand dollar Scaphechinus mirabilis were compared. Comet assay showed that both tested pollutants caused an increase in DNA damage to 6.57 ± 2.41 and 7.42 ± 0.88% DNA in the comet tail, for zinc ions and ZnO NPs, respectively. Additionally, a different pattern was shown by the increase in DNA damage, with increasing concentration of pollutants, in different experimental groups.
