An aneugen is a substance that causes a daughter cell to have an abnormal number of chromosomes or

aneuploidy Aneuploidy is the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes in a cell, for example a human cell having 45 or 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46. It does not include a difference of one or more complete sets of chromosomes. A cell with any ...

. A substance's aneugenicity reflects its ability to induce aneuploidy. Unlike clastogens, aneugenic events do not damage the physical structure of the chromosome, but represent a deletion or insertion of an additional copy of a whole chromosome (i.e. with an intact

Centromere The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids. During mitosis, spindle fibers a ...

). Aneugens and clastogens can be differentated via certain stains, using the technique of

Fluorescence in situ hybridization Fluorescence ''in situ'' hybridization (FISH) is a molecular cytogenetic technique that uses fluorescent probes that bind to only particular parts of a nucleic acid sequence with a high degree of sequence complementarity. It was developed b ...

. People with testicles, if exposed to certain environmental and/or occupational chemical hazards may face an increased risk of

spermatozoa A spermatozoon (; also spelled spermatozoön; ; ) is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, ...

. Tobacco smoke contains chemicals that cause DNA damage (see Tobacco smoking#Health). Smoking also can induce

. In this study of men with a moderate smoking habit showed an association with increased chromosome 13 disomy in spermatozoa by 3-fold and YY disomy by 2-fold. Occupational exposure to benzene is associated with a 2.8-fold increase of XX disomy and a 2.6-fold increase of YY disomy in spermatozoa.

Pesticide Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...

s are released to the environment in large quantities so that most individuals have some degree of exposure. The

insecticide Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

fenvalerate Fenvalerate is a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide. It is a mixture of four optical isomers which have different insecticidal activities. The 2-S ''alpha'' (or SS) configuration, known as esfenvalerate, is the most insecticidally active isomer. F ...

and

carbaryl Carbaryl (1-naphthyl methylcarbamate) is a chemical in the carbamate family used chiefly as an insecticide. It is a white crystalline solid previously sold under the brand name Sevin, which was a trademark of the Bayer Company. The Sevin tradem ...

have been reported to increase spermatozoa aneuploidy. Occupational exposure of pesticide factory workers to fenvalerate is associated with increased spermatozoa DNA damage. Exposure to fenvalerate raised sex chromosome disomy 1.9-fold and disomy of chromosome 18 by 2.6-fold (Xia et al., 2004). Exposure of male workers to carbaryl increased DNA fragmentation in spermatozoa, and also increased sex chromosome disomy by 1.7-fold and chromosome 18 disomy by 2.2-fold. Humans are exposed to

perfluorinated compound A perfluorinated compound (PFC) or perfluoro compound is an organofluorine compound containing only carbon-fluorines and C−C bonds, as well as potentially heteroatoms. Perfluorinated compounds have properties that result from the presence of flu ...

s (PFCs) in many commercial products. Men contaminated with PFCs in whole blood or seminal plasma have spermatozoa with increased levels of DNA fragmentation and chromosomal aneuploidies.

References

Carcinogenesis {{biochemistry-stub

See also

References