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The Effects Of Mercury Exposure On The Cytochrome C Oxidase 1 Gene Of Larval Dragonflies, Megan C. Little
The Effects Of Mercury Exposure On The Cytochrome C Oxidase 1 Gene Of Larval Dragonflies, Megan C. Little
Honors College
Mercury is an environmental pollutant; its most toxic form is methylmercury. Once mercury is converted to methylmercury in a body of water it is able to bioaccumulate in organisms and biomagnify up the food chain. Mercury is able to cause DNA damage through the generation of free radicals and binding to sulfhydryl groups of cysteines in zinc finger DNA binding domains, inhibiting DNA repair machinery. In this study the potential mutagenic effects of mercury were investigated on larval dragonflies (Odonta: Anisoptera) collected from national parks across the United States. Since mercury is a known mutagen it was hypothesized that the …