Evaluation of genome stability of bone marrow cells of dogs with naturally infected visceral leishmaniasis

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to identify and evaluate the genomic stability of visceral leishmaniasis in naturally infected dogs. A total of 32 dogs participated in the study, 24 of which were asymptomatic animals, naturally infected, and 8 uninfected, used as a control group. The comet and micronucleus assay tests were performed on bone marrow cells obtained by means of aspiration puncture. For data analysis, the Shapiro-Wilk test was used to verify the normality of the data, and then the Mann-Whitney and T-tests for the comparison between the infected and control groups. The analysis of samples from naturally infected animals and healthy animals showed that the infection caused by the protozoan responsible for leishmaniasis was not able to induce DNA damage in the cells of the infected animals. In the results obtained through the micronucleus test, an increase in the number of micronuclei were observed in polychromatophilic erythrocytes in the medullary tissue of the infected group, when compared to the control group. As a main contribution, the results expressed in this study, consider that the comet and micronucleus assays are suitable for the biomonitoring of genomic stability in bone marrow cells of naturally infected dogs with visceral leishmaniasis.