ABSTRACT
About 30 million people in the State of West Bengal, India, are exposed to very high amount of arsenic in their drinking water. Although a large number of individuals are exposed to arsenic through drinking water, but only 10–12% individuals showed arsenic induced specific skin lesions. For this reason, it is believed that genetic variations among the arsenic exposed individuals might be responsible for this arsenic susceptibility and carcinogenicity. We have tried to identify the arsenic susceptible individuals by assessing the genetic damage as measured by micronucleus assay in human lymphocytes and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) in both arsenic induced skin symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals exposed to similar arsenic contaminated water.
