Genotoxic Effects of Formaldehyde in Human Hepatoma Cell Line HepG2 Detected by Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis Assay

To observe the genotoxic effects of formaldehyde in human hepatoma cell line HepG2,the cultured HepG2 cells are used as the experimental material and the effects on DNA damage in HepG2 cells exposed to different concentrations of formaldehyde for 2 hours are analyzed by the single cell gel electrophoresis(SCGE) assay.It is found that a significant dose-dependent increment in both tail DNA % and comet tail length is detected at low concentrations of formaldehyde(5,25 μmol/L) in HepG2 cells,it indicates that low concentrations of formaldehyde could cause DNA strand breakages;however,at higher concentrations of formaldehyde(125,625 μmol/L) a reduction in both tail DNA % and comet tail length is significantly observed in a concentration-related manner,it suggests that higher concentrations of formaldehyde could cause the induction of DNA-protein cross-links in HepG2 cells.