BIOMARKER MONITORING OF A POPULATION RESIDING NEAR URANIUM MINING ACTIVITIES

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.