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The LAI Comet Analysis system provides a number of powerful analytic measures to characterize and quantify the degree of DNA damage revealed by the comet assay. These measures include:

Measure

Description

Tail Length

Provides a measure of the maximum distance of cellular DNA migration.

Tail Area

The total projected area of the comet tail, coupling aspects of both tail length and average width in a single measure.

Integrated Cell Intensity

The total fluorescent intensity in the cell, providing an index of total cellular DNA content, useful for cell cycle assessments.

Percent DNA in the Tail

The integrated tail intensity x 100 divided by the total integrated cell intensity for a normalized measure of the percent of total cell DNA found in the tail.

Tail Moment

The product of distance and normalized intensity integrated over the tail length for a damage measure combining the amount of DNA in the tail with the distance of migration (severity of damage).

Tail Moment Arm

The tail moment divided by the normalized integrated tail intensity to measure the average distance of DNA migration within the tail.

Tail Moment of Inertia

The distance squared x normalized intensity integrated over the length of the tail. Similar to tail moment, but providing further emphases on the migration distance, for more sensitivity in low damage conditions.

Fragmentation

Measures the relative texture or roughness of the fluorescent cell intensity providing an index of the total fragmentation of cellular DNA in both the head and tail combined.