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. 2022 Nov 8;10(11):674.
doi: 10.3390/toxics10110674.

Genotoxic Biomonitoring in Children Living near the El Fraile Mine Tailings in Northern Guerrero State, Mexico

María Elena Calderon-Segura  1 , Alejandro Ramírez-Guzmán  2 , Oscar Talavera-Mendoza  2 , Yolanda Carbajal-López  3 , María Del Carmen Martínez-Valenzuela  4 , Martha Elena Mora-Herrera  5 , Liliana Salinas-Alcántara  1 , Patricia Hurtado-Brito  1
Affiliations

Genotoxic Biomonitoring in Children Living near the El Fraile Mine Tailings in Northern Guerrero State, Mexico

María Elena Calderon-Segura et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

A genotoxic study was conducted with 101 elementary school children (56 girls and 45 boys) in the 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12 age ranges from El Fraile rural community, which is located beside the El Fraile mine tailings in Taxco of Alarcon City, in northern Guerrero State, Mexico. For this, we used the alkaline comet assay in exfoliated buccal mucosa cells, scoring three genotoxic parameters: tail intensity, tail moment, and tail length. Additionally, we detected oxidative DNA damage through urinary 8-OHdG levels by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We also evaluated a control group consisting of 101 children in the same age ranges from Chilpancingo City, Guerrero, who had never lived near mining zones. Genotoxic results showed that there was a significant increase in three genotoxic parameters and urinary 8-OHdG levels in the exposed children group compared with the control group. Analysis of MANOVA revealed that boys aged 8 and 9 years had higher DNA damage than girls from the same exposure group, and Spearman's analysis identified a positive correlation between DNA damage and sex and age. This study provides the first valuable genotoxic data in children living in areas with environmental pollution.

Keywords: DNA damage; El Fraile Taxco mine tailings; México; children; exfoliated buccal mucosa cells; urinary 8-OHdG adduct.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study areas. The El Fraile community is located beside the El Fraile mine tailings in Taxco of Alarcon City in Northern, and Chilpancingo City in South, Guerrero State, México.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Nuclei without comet (without DNA damage) (A) and with comet (with DNA damage) (B) from exfoliated buccal mucosa cells.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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