Genotoxicity of Xenobiotics

Food contaminants may lead either directly or after bio-activation, to cellular damage especially to macromolecules such as DNA. This damage, if not repaired in time for the cells, can lead to the appearance of mutations and trigger a process of carcinogenesis.

The research area of "genotoxicity of food contaminants" is to better understand the genotoxic effect of certain food contaminants (pesticides, AAH, PAH), studying the relationship between the bioactivation of these substances during metabolism and the damage to cellular DNA.

This research is done by using techniques for the study of xenobiotic metabolism in different human cell lines coupled with a new technique for detecting DNA damage developed by our team.