Avaliação da genotoxicidade e da citotoxicidade de produtos utilizados na terapia pulpar de dentes decíduos com o uso do teste de micronúcleo em medula óssea de camundongos e do ensaio cometa em linfócitos humanos

Abstract

Pulp therapy for deciduous teeth is the last resort for preventing tooth loss, but among the products used for this, i.e. so-called filling pastes, none is considered to be ideal. The objective of this study, using the micronucleus test on the bone marrow of mice and the comet assay on human lymphocytes, was to evaluate the genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of four filling pastes that are used in this therapy: zinc oxide, calcium hydroxide P.A., mineral trioxide aggregate and an iodoform paste (Guedes-Pinto paste). To perform the micronucleus test, male Swiss mice (Mus musculus) were divided into groups of ten animals each: four groups were each exposed to one of the filling pastes, administered intraperitoneally at dilutions of 1/10, 1/50, 1/500 and 1/1000. Cyclophosphamide was used as the positive control. The negative controls used were the dilution vehicles: dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) for the Guedes paste and zinc oxide; and phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS) for the calcium hydroxide P.A. and mineral trioxide aggregate. The animals were sacrificed 24 h and 48 h after the treatment. The bone marrow was extracted, in order to calculate the micronucleus occurrence rate in 1000 polychromatic erythrocytes (PCE) in each of the animals, under an optical microscope (1000 X), in a blinded test. Cytotoxicity was evaluated by determining the PCE/NCE (normochromatic erythrocyte) ratio in 200 erythrocytes/animal. For the comet assay, human lymphocytes were cultured in different dilutions of each of the filling pastes (1:500, 1:750, 1:1000 and 1:2000), for 3 h at 37 °C, under an atmosphere containing 5% CO2. Two positive controls were used: methyl-methanesulfonate (0.4 µM) for the calcium hydroxide P.A. and mineral trioxide aggregate; and doxorubicin (0.6 µM) for the Guedes paste and zinc oxide. Two negative controls were also used here: distilled water for the calcium hydroxide P.A. and mineral trioxide aggregate; and DMSO for the Guedes paste and zinc oxide. Comets were identified by means of fluorescence microscopy (400 X), and 100 of them were counted on each of the three slides that were analyzed for each drug test. The statistical analysis on the results from the micronucleus test was performed using the conditional test for comparing proportions in situations of rare events. Analysis of variance, followed by the Tukey test, was used to assess the PCE/NCE ratio obtained from the different treatments and also to compare the means from the DNA damage indices that were obtained through the comet test, using the Prisma software, version 4.0. The micronucleus occurrence rate was significantly higher among the animals treated with Guedes paste, at all the dilutions tested and at both sacrifice times and also among the animals treated with zinc oxide and sacrificed 48 h after treatment at the dilutions of 1:50, 1:500 and 1:1000. Cytotoxic effects from these pastes were detected in the animals sacrificed at both times. Calcium hydroxide P.A. and mineral trioxide aggregate did not present any cytotoxic or genotoxic effects. The results obtained from the comet assay also showed that zinc oxide and Guedes paste presented genotoxicity, whereas calcium hydroxide P.A. and mineral trioxide aggregate did not. These results show that there is a need to reassess the use of zinc oxide and Guedes paste and provide encouragement for conducting additional studies to evaluate the genotoxicity and cytotoxicity of these pastes.