CometAssay®

The single cell gel electrophoresis or CometAssay® is a state-of-the-art technique for quantitating DNA damage and repair from in vivo and in vitro samples of eukaryotic cells and some prokaryotic cells. In conjunction with Trevigen's new CometAssay® Electrophoresis System, which eliminates known causes of assay variability, it is the only technique that directly measures DNA damage in individual cells and as a result has rapidly gained importance in the fields of genetic toxicology and human biomonitoring.

1.  Cells mixed with low melting agarose at 37oC (LM Agarose)


2.  Immobilize cells on CometSlide™


3.  Treat cells with Lysis Solution (removes membranes and histones from the DNA)


4.  Samples treated with alkali (unwinds and denatures DNA)


5.  Samples stained with intercalating dye and visualized by epifluorescence microscopy following alkaline electrophoresis, which reveals DNA breaks.