THE EFFECT OF THE MUTAGEN ACRIDINE ORANGE ON THE DNA OF THE MINUTE PLANKTON CRUSTACEANS, DAPHNIA

Abstract

Acridine Orange is a fluorescent dye, which can smoothly permeate a cell membrane. Acridines are considered to produce frameshift mutations, where the insertion or deletion of a base pair occurs. Daphnia, plankton crustaceans, were used as the organism to interact with the mutagen as they have a prompt life cycle and can be cultivated in large populations. After isolating the Daphnia, they were subjected to different treatments of Acridine Orange to indicate which one the Daphnia can survive in, but not thrive. The determined mutagen concentration used for the Daphnia is 1.5 μg/mL. The sequenced F1 generation indicated the presence of indels, and the calculated mutation rate indicated a higher rate for the Daphnia clones than the control. Further research is being done to specify the type of mutation and the mutations of the babies. In future research, it can be determined that for the babies, it will likely be a frameshift mutation.