Changes of DNA fragmentation by Irradiation Doses and Storage in Gamma-irradiated Meats and Poultry

The changes in DNA damage were investigated during storage after irradiation. Beef, pork and chicken were irradiated at 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 kGy and stored for 6 months at $-20^{\circ}C$. The comet assay was applied to the sample muscles at the beginning of irradiation and at the end of storage. Muscles were isolated, sliced, and the suspended cells were embedded in an agarose layer. After lysis of the cells, they were electrophoresed for 2 min. and then stained. DNA fragmentation in tissues caused by irradiation was quantified as tail length and tail moment (tail length ${\times}$ % DNA in tail) by comet image analyzing system. Right after irradiation, the differences in tail length between unirradiated and irradiated muscles were significant(p<0.05) in beef, pork and chicken. With increasing the increasing doses, statistically significant longer extension of the DNA from the nucleus toward anode was observed. Similarly even 6 months after irradiation, all the irradiated muscles significantly showed longer tail length than the unirradiated controls. The results represented as tail moment showed similar tendency to those of tail length, but the latter parameter was more sensitive than the former. These results indicate that the comet assay could be one of the simple methods of detecting irradiated muscles. Moreover, this method suggest that using comet assay, we were able to detect DNA damage differences even after 6 months after irradiation.

감마선 조사 육류, 가금류에서 저장전과 후의 조사선량에 따른 DNA fragmentation의 변화