T5: Genetic toxicity

13 important questions on T5: Genetic toxicity

What is the difference between endogenous and exogenous mutations?

Endogenous mutations are by-products of normal cellular metabolism (ROS) or inflammation.
Exogenous mutations can come from industrial chemicals, drugs, food contaminations or UV radiation. Diet has a big influence!

What are the consequenses of a mutation in a germinal cell?

When it is in a germinal cell, the mutation will be given to the child as well. If it is in a normal cell the child will not get the same mutation.

What can be genotoxic compounds?

- Mutagens: compounds that cause DNA damage
- Clastrogens: compounds that cause structural chomosomal aberrtions
- Aneugens: compounds that cause numerical chomosomal aberrations.
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What are the different types of mutations?

Substitution: a nucleus is changed
Insertion: and extra nucleus is added
Deletion: a nucleus is removed.

Insertion and deletion give a franeshift mutation.

What is chromosomal aberration? Structural (clastrognes)

A part of the chromosome can be deleted, duplicated or inversed.

Error prone repair




incorporation of random nucleotides to fill up a lesion

What is chromosomal aberration? Numerical (aneugens)

This is a mistake in cell devision. The daughter cell can and up with en extra chromosome or one to less.
This causes severe diseases or miscarriage.

What happens when a compoundinds to the DNA?

Than it is up to the DNA damage repair proteins. If they find the mistake, they will repair it. If they do not notice something is wrong, than they will probably not repair it.

What are the indirect routes that can lead to genotoxicity?


They could be ROS mediated, this can cause influence on the gene transcription or cell proliferation.

What is an in vitro test called The Ames test?

A possible mutagen will be grown on a plate next to a plate of the normal bacterias. On the plate there is a minimal concentration of histidine, this is needed to grow. If there is way more cells after incubation, there was a mutation.
not correct....

What is the in vitro Mammalian gene mutation test?

A cell is exposed to a chemicla and then it is grown to see if there was any difference after the chemical.

In vitro chromosome aberration test?

With this test you can see if there is structural changes in the DNA.

What is tested in vivo?

Here real animals are exposed to  chemical and there is looked at the evaluation of the bone marrow.

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