Figure 3

Comet-forming activity of organotin(IV) carboxylates in MCF-7 cells. Cells were grown to confluence in 12-well multi-well dishes and were exposed in 1 ml of complete medium to various concentrations (0.01 μg/ml, 0.1 μg/ml and 1.0 μg/ml final concentrations) of test agent added as a solution in DMSO; DMSO was employed as the vehicle control and 1.0 μM B[a]P as positive control. Following a 2-h exposure, cells were disaggregated with trypsin/EDTA prior to incorporation into the alkaline comet assay as described in the Materials and methods. As a measure of DNA damage, % Tail DNA (% T DNA) was used; for other measures of DNA damage including comet tail length (CTL; μm), and Olive tail moment (OTM), see Additional file 1.