Olga JASTREBOVA1, Igor KOVALCHUK^2* & Larysa KOVALCHUK^1
1Biology Department, Ivano-Frankivsk State Medical Academy, Ivano-Frankivsk, 76018, Ukraine
²Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB. Canada, T1K 3M4
^* - correspondence author: igor.kovalchuk@uleth.ca;

TESTING THE MUTAGENICITY OF SOILS FROM DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE IVANO-FRANKIVSK REGION (UKRAINE) USING HETEROZYGOUS NICOTIANA TABACUM (SU/+) PLANTS

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In this work we used Su/+ Nicotiana tabacum plants to analyze potential mutagenecity of soils from three different zones in Ukraine, zone of chemical contamination, zone of enhanced radiological control and conditionally clean zone. Leaves of Su/+ plants are pale green with occasional appearance of dark green spots indicating mutations at the Sulfur locus. We found that plants grown on soils from all three zones had shorter stem and smaller crown diameter as compared to plants grown on control greenhouse soil. For the mutagenecity assay, we analyzed the spot appearance, the number of spots per plant and the average area of spots per plant. The analysis showed that soil samples from most of the tested areas had higher mutagenecity as compared to control soil sample. Thus, our data showed that Su/+ plants are effective indicators of soil pollution.