Vitamin C pretreatment mitigates the genotoxic effects of sodium arsenite in human lymphocytes in vitro

Article history: Received on: 26/05/2014 Revised on: 02/07/2014 Accepted on: 24/08/2014 Available online: 27/08/2014 The present study was aimed to evaluate Vitamin C (VC) as a potent natural antioxidant to reduce the genotoxic effects of sodium arsenite in human lymphocytes. The study was design to assess the role of VC (10 μg/ml), upon sodium arsenite induced in vitro genotoxicity by using alkaline comet assay technique. Lymphocytes were incubated for 3h at 37oC in RPMI-1640 medium with different concentrations of sodium arsenite (12.5 μg/ml, 25 μg/ml, 50 μg/ml and 100 μg/ml) and also in combined treatment of sodium arsenite with VC (100 μg/ml + 10 μg/ml).Our findings suggest that treatment with sodium arsenite increased the primary DNA damage and pretreatment with VC reduces the genotoxic effects of sodium arsenite effectively and efficiently at the highest concentration in vitro, proving its mitigating effect.