. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Oct 19.

Published in final edited form as: Mutat Res Rev Mutat Res. 2021 Feb 6;787:108371. doi: 10.1016/j.mrrev.2021.108371

Table 2.

Reference values for selected descriptors of the comet assay in the whole dataset and in the subset of control individuals.

Descriptor	N	Observed data			Modelled data
Descriptor	N	Mean (SD)	Median	25°−75° percentile	Expected Mean^*(SD)	Expected Median^*(25°−75°)
Tail length (μm) Overall	3,002	32.3 (20.4)	28.6	16.6‒47.1	*22.4 (9.6)*	**23.3 (14.8‒26.9)**
Controls	1,228	*28.6 (17.5)*	*26.6*	**14.2‒43.6**	21.1 (8.6)	22.4 (14.3‒25.6)
Tail Intensity (%) Overall	8,293	7.4 (8.8)	4.5	1.6‒9.9	*5.4 (5.0)*	2.8 (1.3‒5.4)
Controls	4,625	*4.8 (5.5)*	*2.9*	1.1–6.7	3.9 (3.5)	**3.9 (1.8‒7.7)**
Tail Moment (au) Overall	2,793	3.96 (8.9)	1.1	0.5‒2.4	*2.0 (6.1)*	**1.1 (0.5‒2.1)**
Controls	1,181	*2.8 (6.9)*	*0.9*	**0.4‒1.8**	*2.0 (9.0)*	0.9 (0.5‒1.6)

Predicted values from a mixed random effect log-linear model including the fixed effects of age, sex, smoking habit, exposure to genotoxic agents, cell type (isolated lymphocytes or whole blood), sample processing (fresh/frozen) and the random effects of laboratory, study and subject; 5°–95° correspond to the 25th-75th percentiles. Standard deviation (SD), arbitrary units(au)..