Protective Effect of Boric Acid on Oxidative DNA Damage In Chinese Hamster Lung Fibroblast V79 Cell Lines

Objective: Many studies have been published on the antioxidative effects of boric acid (BA) and sodium borates in in vitro studies. However, the boron (B) concentrations tested in these in vitro studies have not been selected by taking into account the realistic blood B concentrations in humans due to the lack of comprehensive epidemiological studies. The recently published epidemiological studies on B exposure conducted in China and Turkey provided blood B concentrations for both humans in daily life and workers under extreme exposure conditions in occupational setting. The results of these studies have made it possible to test antioxidative effects of BA in in vitro studies within the concentration range relevant to humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effects of BA against oxidative DNA damage in V79 (Chinese hamster lung fibroblast) cells. The concentrations of BA tested for its protective effect was selected by taking the blood B concentrations into account reported in previously published epidemiological studies. Therefore, the concentrations of BA tested in this study represent the exposure levels for humans in both daily life and occupational settings. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, comet assay and neutral red uptake (NRU) assay methods were used to determinacy to toxicity and genotoxicity of BA and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Results: The results of the NRU assay showed that BA was not cytotoxic within the tested concentrations (3, 10, 30, 100 and 200 μM). These non-cytotoxic concentrations were used for comet assay. BA pre-treatment significantly reduced (P