(kein Betreff)

[Jayakumar, R]

Well.. I once spilled a 10mg/ml ethidium bromide a couple of ml on my palm and I am perfectly healthy and have had a normal life so far.  Me and my wife have been working with ethidium bromide for more than a decade now and we have perfectly normal and healthy children. Just be careful but don't get hysteric if it falls on your hand. Follow the recommendations for cleaning it off as soon as possible.  It is not that dangerous as people say it is, but I would take every precaution, lest I become the first guinea pig.  I guess from my experience, a spill once or twice inyour life time should be fine :-))) It is mostly hysteria. Anyway, there are no studies showing it to be a carcinogen in humans yet.  So it is always a "suspected" carcinogen / mutagen due to its DNA intercalating properties.  It defenitely is safer than cigarrette smoke (proven carcinogen).
   Bye and best of luck in handling.
Jay
 
-----Original Message-----
From: methods-bounces@... [mailto:methods-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Allan
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:09 PM
To: methods@...
Subject: (kein Betreff)

Hi!

I'm back to the old ethidium topic again! I have been working with this chemical a lot over the past two years and have been wondering how mutagenic/carcinogenic/teratogenic it actually is in the body. I can't imagine whether it will be resorbed via the skin into the blood system or whether a polar molecule of this size will cross the blood-brain barrier/seratoli barrier/placenta.

Don't get me wrong, I am careful with this substance, but being quite a worryful person, I am sometimes worried that somewhere in the lab there could be contamination from coworkers (you can't always run around with a UV light)

Different people in the lab treat the chemical with different degrees of caution and I just wonder whether microgram quantities present a serious risk or if they are rather more comparable to smoking a cigarette.

I sometimes ask myself whether the amount of hysteria made around etbr is justified when chemicals like formaldehyde, phenol and chloroform are also used in the lab.

Does anyone have a clue as to the risk of this chemical (in comparision to say a cigarette), especially in terms of crossing the placenta etc.
and do you know how long it is stable in normal light?

Thanks for any answers, as I am getting a little worried about the substance!

All the best,

Allan

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[Allan-60]

Hi!

I'm back to the old ethidium topic again! I have been working with this
chemical a lot over the past two years and have been wondering how
mutagenic/carcinogenic/teratogenic it actually is in the body. I can't
imagine whether it will be resorbed via the skin into the blood system
or whether a polar molecule of this size will cross the blood-brain
barrier/seratoli barrier/placenta.

Don't get me wrong, I am careful with this substance, but being quite a
worryful person, I am sometimes worried that somewhere in the lab there
could be contamination from coworkers (you can't always run around with
a UV light)

Different people in the lab treat the chemical with different degrees of
caution and I just wonder whether microgram quantities present a serious
risk or if they are rather more comparable to smoking a cigarette.

I sometimes ask myself whether the amount of hysteria made around etbr
is justified when chemicals like formaldehyde, phenol and chloroform are
also used in the lab.

Does anyone have a clue as to the risk of this chemical (in comparision
to say a cigarette), especially in terms of crossing the placenta etc.
and do you know how long it is stable in normal light?

Thanks for any answers, as I am getting a little worried about the
substance!

All the best,

Allan

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Methods@...
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[Cathal Garvey]

I'd agree: Although it's not as dangerous as it's often made out to be, that
doesn't mean you shouldn't be as careful as you're being.

Put it like this; if you want to think of it like a cigarette, that might
make a lot of sense. A normal person exposed once or twice to miniscule
quantities probably won't notice the effects over the background noise of
life's health problems.

However a researcher should be careful to limit exposure because they'll be
exposed constantly, like a life-long smoker if you like. They're more likely
to suffer long term effects because, although it's not *that* toxic, the
additive impact of being dosed so many times over your lifetime do add up.
Not to mention; it's always the same part that gets dosed; the hands and
face (from unwashed hands) in cases of poor handling. That's a risk factor
in itself.

Also, it is apparently readily absorbed through skin, despite its polarity.
So I would assume to be on the safe side that it can cross the placenta or
blood/brain, too, to be safe.
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[Taliaferro, Dwayne (NIH/NIMH) [F]]

I read somewhere that EtBr can cross through latex gloves (nytrile gloves are safe)---just to add to the hysteria.  :P


On 11/11/09 4:08 PM, "Allan" <allan.jones@...> wrote:

Hi!

I'm back to the old ethidium topic again! I have been working with this
chemical a lot over the past two years and have been wondering how
mutagenic/carcinogenic/teratogenic it actually is in the body. I can't
imagine whether it will be resorbed via the skin into the blood system
or whether a polar molecule of this size will cross the blood-brain
barrier/seratoli barrier/placenta.

Don't get me wrong, I am careful with this substance, but being quite a
worryful person, I am sometimes worried that somewhere in the lab there
could be contamination from coworkers (you can't always run around with
a UV light)

Different people in the lab treat the chemical with different degrees of
caution and I just wonder whether microgram quantities present a serious
risk or if they are rather more comparable to smoking a cigarette.

I sometimes ask myself whether the amount of hysteria made around etbr
is justified when chemicals like formaldehyde, phenol and chloroform are
also used in the lab.

Does anyone have a clue as to the risk of this chemical (in comparision
to say a cigarette), especially in terms of crossing the placenta etc.
and do you know how long it is stable in normal light?

Thanks for any answers, as I am getting a little worried about the
substance!

All the best,

Allan

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Methods@...
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[Cathal Garvey]

Indeed, so they say in our lab too! I don't worry too much about that though
unless there's a spillage, or until I start handling the gel itself. I just
don't see there being *enough* Bromide on any dry, normal surfaces to
meaningfully impact glove safety.

For Gel Work, I do use the Nitrile gloves though.

Interestingly, I just read through the Sybr-Safe manual; they had an
independent lab compare the two for safety, and had a fold-difference chart
for mutagenicity. In most cases, EtBr didn't do much. For certain strains
tested though (not sure what the "Strains" were, but they were mammalian I
believe) the fold difference was over 40 for EtBr. So it can be a
significant mutagen in some circumstances all right.
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[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Am 13.10.2009, 10:59 Uhr, schrieb Taliaferro, Dwayne (NIH/NIMH) [F]  
<taliaferrod@...>:

> I sometimes ask myself whether the amount of hysteria made around etbr
> is justified when chemicals like formaldehyde, phenol and chloroform are
> also used in the lab.

Now, that would require knowledge about the dangers of those chemicals.  
Phenol was used for decades as disinfectant for surgery, a fine mist of  
the aqueous solution was sprayed onto patients, physicians and nurses  
alike. To the best of my knowledge at least this long-term exposure of  
medical personal did not lead to an increase in cancer or in flk (funny  
looking kids).

Chloroform was also used during surgery, as a volatile anaestetic.  
Although its flammability has indeed caused some problems (not quite as  
bad as those with ether, though), I am not aware of any epidemiological  
studies showing problems in medical personnel.

And formaldehyde has been "shown" to be carcinogenic in rats by exposing  
the poor critters to concentrations of the stuff that no human could  
possibly tolerate. But the rats were in a cage and couldn't run away. The  
resulting cross-linked proteins in their respiratory tract (remember, even  
though formaldehyde has only one aldehyde group, it is a bifunctional  
cross-linker) led to chronic immune activation, and /that/ is a well-known  
cause of cancer. Again, epidemiology amongst pathologists (who used to use  
the stuff by the drum) has never shown increased morbidity or mortality.  
That does not mean that formaldehyde can not act as an allergen, though.

Work cleanly, avoid exposure as much as reasonably possible, don't break  
the law. But be aware that many experimental scientist before you have  
lived long and healthy lifes.
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