Abstract
Pesticides have been considered as potential chemical mutagens; however, little is known about toxic and genotoxic effects during pesticide application in Zamora-Jacona, Michoacan State in Mexico. This study sought to determine DNA damage and cholinesterase activities inhibitions in 54 agricultural workers exposed to complex mixtures of pesticides vs. control group (26 individuals) using Comet assay in peripheral whole blood, micronucleus (MN) test in oral mucosa cells, Cytokinesis-blocked MN assay in lymphocytes (L-CBMNcyt) and measuring AChE and BChE activities in whole blood and plasma samples, respectively. Exposed subjects demonstrated significantly elevated levels of primary (Comet assay: tail intensity, tail length, tail moment, Olive tail moment) and permanent DNA damage (MN assay: in blood/buccal cells; frequencies of nuclear buds, binucleated cells, cells with condensed chromatin, karyorrhexis, pyknosis, and karyolysis). However, inhibition of cholinesterase activities (AChE and BChE) was not observed in the workers. Confounding factors including sex, age, BMI, working exposure period, protection level, smoking habit (cigarettes per day units), alcohol consumption (weekly), medication, were considered in the analysis. These combined techniques demonstrated usefulness in the health hazards risks pesticide exposure assessment and suggested the need for periodic monitoring together with the education and the training of occupational workers for the safe application of potentially harmful pesticides.
Highlights
Zamora-Jacona is an urban area resulting from the conurbation of Zamora and Jacona municipalities, being the third most populous urban nucleus in the State of Michoacán, Mexico
Our findings demonstrate that our workers were not recently exposed to the inhibitors of cholinesterase activity or that they were not exposed to these type of pesticide inhibitors in elevated levels (AChE and BChE activity)
It is important that we demonstrated that MN frequency in lymphocytes and in buccal epithelial cells has the same ratio (2.88) between spontaneous micronucleus frequency level found in control group and the exposed group, since it is the manifest that one invasive blood method could be complemented or even replaced with certainty with one noninvasive method in buccal samples
Summary
The main objective of this study was to determine whether pesticide exposure of agricultural workers in Zamora-Jacona in Michoacan, Mexico, induced alterations in cholinesterases activity (acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) in whole blood/serum) and in cytogenetic damage using alkaline comet assay. Our objective was a determination of a classical biological indicator, the cholinesterases activities and —cytogenetic damage, evaluated with comet assay, L-CBMNcyt test, and buccal MN cytome assay, in workers occupationally exposed to a mixture of pesticides and their controls living in the same region
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