Never done this assay but I understand it's pretty common. I think it would be pretty easy to differentiate DNA damage in a mostly intact nucleus (ie the nucleus is the comet, damaged DNA is the tail) from smaller fragments from late apopotic/necrotic cells.


edit: the only increase in damage came midrace - there were no further increases after that, although in the anti-oxidant women the amount of DNA damage appeared to decrease below baseline after the race.

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