Levels of peripheral blood cell DNA damage in insulin dependent diabetes mellitus human subjects.

Increased production of reactive oxygen species in vivo can lead to cellular biomolecule damage. Such damage has been suggested to contribute to the pathogenesis of IDDM. In this study we used the alkaline comet assay to measure DNA damage (single-stranded DNA breaks and alkali-labile sites) in freshly isolated whole blood, lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils from 23 subjects with IDDM and 32 age- and sex-matched controls. Analysis of the results showed elevated levels of DNA damage (expressed as % comet tail DNA) in the lymphocyte (4.10±0.47; 3.22±0.22), monocyte (4.28±0.47; 3.49±0.18) and whole blood (4.93±0.51; 4.51±0.23) fractions from IDDM subjects compared to controls, respectively, but the increases observed were not statistically significant. However, we found significantly elevated basal levels of DNA damage in the neutrophil fraction (8.38±0.64; 4.07±0.23; p