The comet assay free#

The assay measures DNA damage (i.e., strand breaks, DNA adducts, excision repair sites, and cross-links) at the single-cell level. The name 'comet assay' is derived from the appearance of this damaged and undamaged DNA which resembles a comet. Comet assay is a microgel electrophoresis technique, which detects DNA damage and repair in individual cells. The brighter and longer the DNA tail, the higher the level of damage. Simply put, the amount of DNA which leaves the nucleus is a measure of the amount of DNA damage to the cell.

The comet assay free#

The undamaged DNA does not move, whereas the damaged DNA (smaller fragments) are free to migrate away from the nucleus. The DNA (which has an overall negative charge) it is drawn towards the positively charged anode. It is versatile, relatively simple to perform and sensitive. The theory is that undamaged DNA retains a highly organised association with matrix proteins in the nucleus and when the DNA is damaged (by chemicals or UV radiation), this organisation is disrupted.Дuring the application of an electric field, the individual strands of DNA lose their compact structure and drift out of the nucleus and into the low melting point agarose suspension. We present a procedure for the comet assay, a gel electrophoresis-based method that can be used to measure DNA damage in individual eukaryotic cells. The comet assay is based upon the movement of nuclear DNA through an agarose gel when an electrical field is applied. The Comet (single cell gel electrophoresis) assay is a method for obtaining the amount of DNA fragmentation of single cells.