Increase in mitotic recombination in diploid cells of Aspergillus nidulans in response to ethidium bromide

Abstract

Ethidium bromide (EB) is an intercalating inhibitor of topoisomerase II and its activities are related to chemotherapeutic drugs used in anti-cancer treatments. EB promotes several genotoxic effects in exposed cells by stabilising the DNA-enzyme complex. The recombinagenic potential of EB was evaluated in our in vivo study by the loss of heterozygosity of nutritional markers in diploid Aspergillus nidulans cells through Homozygotization Index (HI). A DNA repair mutation, uvsZ and a chromosome duplication DIP (II-I) were introduced in the genome of tested cells to obtain a sensitive system for the recombinagenesis detection. EB-treated diploid cells had HI values significantly greater than the control at both concentrations (4.0 × 10-3 and 5.0 × 10-3 μM). Results indicate that the intercalating agent is potentially capable of inducing mitotic crossing-over in diploid A. nidulans cells.