Toxicology MSDT

PRINCIPLES OF GENETIC TOXICOLOGY

​​Subtopic 4.1: DNA Fragmentation/Ladder Assay

DNA fragmentation or ladder assay are used to know the fragmented DNA of the cells caused by  chemicals or drugs. Fragmented DNA can be separated  agarose gel electrophoresis and can be visualized as “ladder” by ethidium bromide staining (Figure 1).

The evaluation of cytotoxicity through cell death is an acceptable common assessment.

Ladder assay are performed for following reason:
  1. to simply characterize the toxicity of the chemicals or drugs in cells, or
  2. to determine the maximum doses of the test chemicals or drugs that can be used for cells without causing too much cell death.
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Figure 1. DNA ladder. Nucleotide base pair mentioned as,“bp”.
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