Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an Object for Testing the Genotoxicity of Chemical Compounds

In connection with the requirements of international and national organizations to comply with ethical principles for experiments using animals, alternative test systems are being sought and tested to replace animals in ecological, toxicological, and genotoxicological studies. One such alternative may be the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which has a biotransformation system of chemical compounds similar to the mammalian system. The genotoxicity of the pesticide paraquat and the antibacterial agent furacilin was studied on C. elegans by horizontal gel electrophoresis of total DNA in order to assess its integrity. It has been shown that paraquat in concentrations of 0.01 to 0.05 mol/L and furacilin in concentrations of 0.0001 and 0.00025 mol/L caused DNA breaks in nematode cells. The antioxidant N-acetylcysteine at a concentration of 0.01 mol/L reduced the genotoxicity of both compounds.