Environmental impact on sheep pastured in some polluted areas of Sardinia island: preliminary results with SCE-test.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean sea. Although it is famous for very beautiful landscapes not only along the coast, there are some polluted areas. A special project supported by the Sardinian Region and involving several research groups is trying to study these areas by using several approaches. In the present study, we report the preliminary results obtained from six sheep herds (Sardinian breed) grazing on natural pasturelands in the vicinity of possible polluted areas. Two herds were located in the Nordern area (industrial and military zones) and four herds were located in the Souther area (military, industrial and mine zones) of the Iceland. Peripheral blood samples were collected from 20 adult sheep (over 4 years) randomly selected from each of six herds grazing around above mentioned areas, as well as from three herds grazing in areas retained far from possible polluted areas and used as control. Two types of cell cultures were performed: without (normal cultures) and with addition of BrdU during the last 28 h: the former, to study the AC-test (chromosome and chromatid breaks), the latter for the SCE-test. In this report only data from SCE-test are reported. A total of 92 sheep from polluted areas and 37 sheep fromcontrol areas were studied.Upon 35 cells studied for each animal, SCE-mean values were 8.65±3.40, 8.10±3.50, 8.05±3.08, 7.42±3.34, 9.28± 3.56 and 8.38±3.29 in the exposed areas, as well as 7.86±3.31 in the control group. Significant increasing (P<0.01) of SCEs were found only in three areas of Southern area. Cytogenetic analyses using AC-test on the same animal groups are in progress.