Spontaneous DNA damage in peripheral blood leukocytes from donors of different age.

Spontaneous DNA damage in peripheral blood cells was studied in healthy donors of different age (23-70 years). Alkaline comet assay was used to evaluate total DNA damage in individual cells. The individual variability in venous blood samples was higher than in capillary blood samples. The advantage of analysis of DNA damage in nucleated cells from the whole blood is more preferable compared to experiments with isolated lymphocytes because all cell populations in the sample are analyzed. Study of blood cells from healthy donors showed that the mean percent of DNA in the comet tail tended to decrease with age. However, correlation analysis revealed no relationship was found between donor age and degree of spontaneous DNA damage.