Ww. Au et al., BIOMARKER MONITORING OF A POPULATION RESIDING NEAR URANIUM MINING ACTIVITIES, Environmental health perspectives, 103(5), 1995, pp. 466-470
We investigated whether residents residing near uranium mining operati
ons (target population), who are potentially exposed to toxicants from
mining waste, have increased genotoxic effects compared with people r
esiding elsewhere (reference population), Population surveys were cond
ucted, and 24 target and 24 reference residents were selected. The sel
ected subjects and controls were matched on age and gender and they we
re nonsmokers. Blood samples were collected for laboratory studies, Th
e standard cytogenetic assay was used to determine chromosome aberrati
on frequencies, and the challenge assay was used to investigate DNA re
pair responses. We found that individuals who resided near uranium min
ing operations had a higher mean frequency of cells with chromosome ab
errations and higher deletion frequency but lower dicentric frequency
than the reference group, although the difference was nor statisticall
y significant. After cells were challenged by exposure to gamma-rays,
the target population had a significantly higher frequency of cells wi
th chromosome aberrations and deletion Frequency than the reference gr
oup. The latter observation is indicative of abnormal DNA repair respo
nse in the target population.