Quantifying DNA damage by gel electrophoresis, electronic imaging and number-average length analysis

DNA damages that can be converted to single- or doubl strand breaks ca be quntified by separating DNA y gel electrophoreis and obtinin a uantitative image of the resuling distribution o DNA in the gel. We review hetheory of this metho and discuss its implementation, including the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera systems we developed to cquired images o fluorophore labeled DNA.