International Hands-on workshop on genotoxiciy monitoring bioassays for

environmental pollutionUniversity of Silesia, Jagiellonska 28,

40-032 Katowice, Poland Directed by

Prof. Jolanta Maluszynska, Department of Plant Anatomy and Cytology, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland

Prof. Siegfried Knasmueller, Institute for Cancer Research, The Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Prof. Michael Plewa, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL, USA

International workshop on genotoxicity monitoring bioassays for environmental pollution

Group photo of the participants

Prof. Knasmueller (left) and Prof. Maluszynska (right) discuss workshop plan

Prof. Jolanta Maluszynska giving instructions at the workshop, demonstrating Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) assay (photomicrograph was not available)

Instructor of the workshop giving a lecture to the participants.

Prof. Michael Plewa of the University of Illinois demonstrating the slide preparation for Comet test for clastogens

Photomicrograph of a comet tail as the result of DNA damage by clastogens

Mr. Bernhard Majer of the medical University of Vienna prepares Allium roots and Tradescantia cuttings for chromosome aberration and micronucleus assays .

Tradescantia plants bearing young inflorescences provide the test material for both Tradescantia- Stamen-Hair (Trad-SHM) and Tradescantia-Micronucleus (Trad-MCN) assays

Photomicrograph of Sister-Chromatid-Exchange (SCE) in Tradescantia root tip cell cell.

Photomicrograph of Sister-Chromatid-Exchange (SCE) in Tradescantia root tip cell

Dissection of flower buds in preparation of Trad-MCN slides from the meiotic microsporocytes

Preparing stamen hairs of Tradescantia flower under a dissecting microscope for scoring frequencies of pink mutation events in the Trad-SHM assay.

MCN

MCN

Photomicrograph showing micronuclei (MCN) among the resting stage root tip cells in the subsequent generation of treated nuclei

Photomicrograph of the tetrad stage of microsporocyte of Tradescantia showing micronuclei (MCN) among the synchronized tetrads in Trad-MCN assay

MCN

MCN

MCN

Scoring pink mutation events under the dissecting microscope in the Tad-SHM assay

Tradescantia flowers ready for scoring pink mutation events after a 16- minute refrigeration in the Trad-SHM assay

Photomicrograph of orderly aligned stamen hairs showing 3 pink mutation events in this field of view in the Trad-SHM assay

pink

bluepink

blue

Collecting data for frequencies of mutation and micronueli in treated and control groups of Trad-SHM and Trad-MCN assays

DATA analysis using computer software and print out for report write up

After a day’s hard work, participants took a tour around town

Relaxing and shopping in the Mall in the city of Katowice, Poland

Let’s have some coffee and snack

A walk outside to have some fresh air