Comparative analysis of the karyotype sensitivities of Apodemus flavicollis and laboratory mice to DNA‐damaging agents

Abstract

This investigation presents data concerning karyotypic sensitivities of Apodemus flavicollis to the impact of some compounds with proven clastogenic effect – the alkylating agent Cyclophosphamide (CP) and the antitumor antibiotic Mitomycin C. Twenty‐three A. flavicollis collected from natural populations and treated under laboratory conditions were used to analyse chromosomal aberrations. On air‐dried Giemsa's stained slides of bone marrow cells the frequencies of chromatid breaks, fragments, centromeric fusions and pericentric inversions were scored. Fourteen laboratory ICR mice were used for comparison to the native species. It was established that the applied dose CP, 40mg/kg, provokes 9.46% chromosome aberrations in A. flavicollis whereas in the ICR mice it is 21.6%. Similar results were obtained in the group of A. flavicollis treated with 2.5mg/kg Mitomycin C, 10.78% metaphases with chromosome aberrations, and 30.5% in ICR mice, respectively. This study demonstrates that the native species A. flavicollis has considerably higher karyotype stability than laboratory mice following exposure to the specific damaging agents used in this study. These findings have important implications for the use of A. flavicollis in ecotoxicological studies.

Keywords:

• Apodemus flavicollis
• chromosome aberrations
• monitoring
• Mitomycin C
• Cyclophosphamide