Genetic Toxicology of Formaldehyde on Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes in Occupational Exposure Populations

Objective To investigate the chromosome and DNA damage in peripheral blood lymphocytes of occupational exposure populations.Methods All 65 workers occupationally exposed to formaldehyde and 70 workers without occupational formaldehyde exposure were recruited.Micronucleuis test and single cell gel electrophoresis assay were used to evaluate the chromosomal and DNA damage of peripheral blood lymphocytes.Results Our results showed that formaldehyde exposure could enhance observably the frequency of micronucleus occurrence and the DNA strand breaks in occupational exposure populations' peripheral hemocytes,and the differences were statistically significant compared with control group(P0.05).The increased tendencies with the increased exposure levels and seniority were found in those indices.However,no significant difference was found in the DNA strand breaks of 0.5～3.11 mg/m3 formaldehyde.Conclusion Formaldehyde has obvious genetic toxicity on occupational exposure staffs,DNA strand breaks may be an early effect biomarker and one of the carcinogenicity mechanisms of formaldehyde.