A Bibliometric Analysis of Somatic Mutation and Recombination Tests of Drosophila melanogaster
Authors: Ghada Tagorti; Bülent Kaya
Affiliation: Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.
Keywords: q. other (Somatic mutation and recombination tests); a. mitosis
Somatic mutation and recombination tests (SMARTs) are accurate and low-cost assays performed to assess the genotoxic potential of multiple pollutants by using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. The present study attempts to understand the current research situation and knowledge base in SMART assays research. To accomplish this, data were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection from 1984 to 2020, to be analyzed by HistCite, Biblioshiny (RStudio), VOSViewer, and CiteSpace. Results have shown an increase in publications within the last ten years, with an annual rate of 14.4 articles. A total of 392 records involving 35 countries were published in 96 sources, mainly from Brazil (n = 106; 27.04%), Spain (n = 69; 17.60%), and Turkey (n = 66; 16.84%). The Federal University of Uberlândia ranked first in terms of publications (n = 39; 9.95%). The Mutation Research-Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis journal had the highest total global citation score per year. Based on document co-citation, five large research clusters were identified. The ‘nanoparticles’ cluster was the youngest research frontier. The top-cited documents focused on SMARTs protocols, statistical tests, and proposed strains to improve the scoring. With this study, the evolution of SMARTs research trends over years was demonstrated. However, international collaboration should be more encouraged and supported.