Comet Tail DNA

After reading Ch. 13 of Silent Spring, I was intrigued by how damaging pesticides can be to chromosomal development. The variety of birds that are affected by exposure to chlorinated hydrocarbons begs the question of how greatly humans are affected by the same pesticides. A couple of years ago, a story came out about Punjab farmers in India suffering from pesticide poisoning. Indian researchers at Patiala University discovered that continued exposure to pesticides resulted in highly damaged DNA and a large increase in cancer vulnerability. They managed to rule out age, smoking, and alcohol during the study and concluded that the farming techniques used in India were really the major source of the DNA mutations. That's hardly a surprise since ATP is incorporated into nucleic acids by polymerases in the processes of DNA replication and transcription. Check out this image of the "comet tails" that damaged DNA produces during Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis.

You can see in the video newscast by BBC below that despite knowledge of the adverse affects of the chemicals they use to protect their crops, there really is little to no protection used in Punjab when the chemicals are sprayed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7408326.stm