Abstract
Several types of whole pulses (green lentils, red lentils, yellow lentils, chickpeas, green peas, cowpeas and yellow peas) and grams (black grams, red grams and white grams) have been investigated for the identification of radiation treatment using microgel electrophoresis of single cells (DNA comet assay). Pulses and grams were exposed to the radiation doses of 0.5, 1.0 and 5 kGy covering the legalized commercial dose range for protection from insect/pest infestations. All irradiated samples showed comet like stretching of fragmented DNA toward anode, which is expected for irradiated samples. Unirradiated samples showed many intact cells/nuclei in form of round stains or with short faint tails, which is typical for unirradiated food samples. The study shows that DNA comet assay can be used as a rapid, inexpensive and highly effective screening test for the detection of radiation treatment of foods, like pulses and grams.
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Acknowledgments
We are thankful to Federal Research Centre for Nutrition, Karlsruhe, Germany for use of research facilities and Dr. Henry Delincée for useful discussions. The authors are also grateful to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Islamabad for Ph. D. fellowship to AAK, including a research stay at Germany, and to Humboldt Foundation for A. von Humboldt fellowship to HMK.
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Khan, H.M., Khan, A.A. & Khan, S. Application of DNA comet assay for detection of radiation treatment of grams and pulses. J Food Sci Technol 48, 718–723 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-010-0169-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-010-0169-z