Micronúcleo da mucosa bucal como biomarcador para identificação e avaliação de exposição a agrotóxicos em díades - mãe/bebê

Abstract

The world population has been growing more and more, and with it the accelerated need for large-scale agricultural production. However, with high production came the intensive use of synthetic chemical pesticides. Several studies have already reported the effects of pesticides on human health. The use of biomarkers to identify the early risks of exposure to pesticides has been fundamental for the formulation of health promotion. The most affected community is the agricultural population, which lives surrounded by crops and animals on which pesticides are used. Therefore, the present study aims to verify the exposure and poisoning by pesticides of mother-infant dyads in rural areas in the Missões region. through collection of oral mucosa samples from the mother and baby of 32 dyads. The selected mothers went through strict inclusion criteria. Sixty-six samples of buccal mucosa cells from the dyads were analyzed in triplicate to determine the presence of micronuclei in 3,000 cells from the mother and 1,000 from the baby. A questionnaire was also used as a data collection tool to assess lifestyle, eating habits, and possible factors that could be influencing possible exposure to pesticides. According to the statistical test, the p-value showed no significance between the association of the exposure factors from the questionnaire and the presence of micronuclei. This result may be favorable to the dyads through micronucleus analysis. Therefore, we can suggest that other tests should be performed based on breast milk and urine analyses to reduce confounding factors and identify whether or not there is possible exposure to pesticides among the dyads in this study. However, this is a pioneering study in the region, since there is no monitoring data in this modality.