Chromosome aberrations in lymphocytes of workers exposed to styrene.
Workers exposed to styrene in the reinforced plastics industry show a significant increase of chromosome aberrations, mainly chromosome breaks, in peripheral blood lymphocytes. The high incidence of aberrant lymphocytes (mean 15.1 +/- 4.8%; referents 2.0 +/- 1.3 %) was retained when the same men were reexamined one year later (mean 16.2 +/- 2.9 %). However, the frequency of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE), a newly developed sensitive parameter for the detection of recombinational exchanges linked with DNA repair, was not significantly increased (mean 5.3 +/- 1.0 SCE/cell) in comparison to the referents (mean 4.4 +/- 0.6 SCE/cell). This finding suggests a specific role of styrene or its metabolites in inducing genetic lesions mainly manifesting themselves as chromosomal breaks.
D000328:Adult; D002842:Chromatids / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D004260:DNA Repair / Q000187:drug effects; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008297:Male; D008333:Mandelic Acids / Q000652:urine; D008875:Middle Aged; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D012907:Smoking; D013343:Styrenes / Q000506:poisoning*; D013997:Time Factors
D008333:Mandelic Acids; D013343:Styrenes