The comet assay in biomonitoring of occupational exposure in rubber factory and plastic lamination plant. Comparison with cytogenetic and immune Biomarkers

The alkaline comet assay was used in parallel with chromosome aberrations a s well as immunological endpoints to assess the effect of exposure in two f actories in Slovakia - a rubber factory and a plastic lamination plant. We examined 29 exposed workers from the rubber factory exposed to a complex mi xture of contaminants belonging mostly to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and two control groups (22 subjects each). In the lamination plant, styren e was the only contaminant at the workplace. Monitoring in this plant consi sted of 17 hand-laminators directly exposed to styrene, 10 medium exposed s prayers and 18 controls. In both factories exposed workers had significantly elevated levels of DNA breaks compared with controls (p<0.001). In both studies we found a correla tion between strand breaks in lymphocytes and years of exposure (p<0.001, r =0.57, p<0.001, r=0.545 resp.). Cytogenetic results also showed significant ly higher numbers of chromosome aberrations in both exposed populations. We observed a clear correlation of chromosome aberrations with DNA strand bre aks. Immune parameters were also changed in workers exposed to both the single c ontaminant (styrene) and the complex mixture.