Chaetophractus villosus as a sentinel organism: Baseline values of mitotic index, chromosome aberrations and sister chromatid exchanges

Abstract Sentinel species are useful tools for studying the deleterious effects of xenobiotics on wildlife. The large hairy armadillo ( Chaetophractus villosus ) is the most abundant and widely distributed mammal in Argentina. It is a long-lived, omnivorous, burrowing species, with fairly restricted home ranges. To evaluate the level of spontaneous genetic damage in this mammal, we determined the baseline values of several genotoxicity biomarkers. The study included 20 C. villosus adults of both sexes from eight pristine localities within its geographic distribution range. Genotoxicity analysis was performed on 72-h lymphocyte cultures, using mitomycin C as positive control. We obtained the baseline values of mitotic index (MI = 10.52 ± 0.30 metaphases/total cells, n  = 20), chromosome aberrations (CA = 0.13 ± 0.22, n  = 20), sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) = 6.55 ± 0.26, n  = 6) and replication index (RI = 1.66, n  = 6). MI and CA did not show significant differences ( P  > 0.05) among localities or between sexes. No significant differences in MI, CA, SCE, and RI ( P  > 0.05) were found between values from the pristine localities and historical data. There were significant differences in CA, SCE, and RI ( P