RESEARCH ARTICLE Landfill soil leachates from Nigeria and India induced DNA damage and alterations in genes associated with apoptosis in Jurkat cell Chibuisi G. Alimba 1,2 & Ashwinkumar P. Rudrashetti 3 & Saravanadevi Sivanesan 4,5 & Kannan Krishnamurthi 4,5 Received: 4 June 2021 /Accepted: 11 August 2021 # The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021 Abstract Landfill soil leachates, containing myriad of xenobiotics, increase genotoxic and cytotoxic stress–induced cell death. However, the underlying mechanism involved in the elimination of the damaged cells is yet to be fully elucidated. This study investigated the apoptotic processes induced in lymphoma (Jurkat) cells by landfill soil leachates from Olusosun (OSL, Nigeria) and Nagpur (NPL, India). Jurkat was incubated with sub-lethal concentrations of OSL and NPL for 24 h and analyzed for DNA fragmentation and apoptosis using agarose gel electrophoresis and Hoechst 33258–PI staining, respectively. Complementary DNA expression profiling of some pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic genes regulating apoptosis was also analyzed using real-time PCR (RT-PCR) method. Agarose gel electrophoresis revealed DNA fragmentations in OSL and NPL–treated cells. Hoecsht-33258 – Propidium Iodide (PI) based apoptotic analysis confirmed apoptotic cell death in exposed Jurkat. RT-PCR analysis revealed different fold changes in the pro- and anti-apoptotic genes in OSL and NPL–treated Jurkat. There was significant increase in fold change of the up-regulated genes; apoptosis inducing factor mitochondrion-associated 2 (AIFM2), Fas-associated death domain (FADD), Caspase-2, Caspase-6, BH3 interacting domain death agonist (BID), tumor suppressor (p53), and BCL2 associated agonist of cell death (BAD) and down-regulation of apoptosis inhibitor 5 (API5). Results suggest that OSL and NPL elicited genotoxic stress–related apoptosis in Jurkat. The dysregulation in the expression of genes involved in apoptotic processes in wildlife and human exposed to landfill emissions may increase aetiology of various pathological diseases including cancer. Keywords Apoptosis . Genotoxicity . Landfill soil leachates . Lymphoma (Jurkat) cell . Real time-PCR analysis Introduction Landfilling of solid wastes remains the most common method of managing solid wastes in most countries of the world (Annepu 2012; Baderna et al. 2011; Khalil et al. 2018; Alimba et al. 2021). In most developing countries including Nigeria and India, many of these landfills are unsanitary (Annepu 2012 ; Alimba 2013 ; Alimba et al. 2021 ). Biodegradable wastes, common waste materials in landfills from developing countries, undergo series of biological and chemical processes in the presence of moisture to produce heaps of decomposed organic matters (landfill soil) which is laden with mixture of organic pollutants and toxic metals (Lah et al. 2008; Alimba et al. 2016, 2021; Khalil et al. 2018; Abiriga et al. 2020). During rainfall or presence of liquid in the landfill, water percolates through the decomposed wastes to generate complex mixture of chemicals in the form of so- lution called leachates (Abiriga et al. 2020). Wildlife including birds and rodents, while scavenging for food in unsanitary landfills, invariably drink leachates as source of water on the Responsible Editor: Diane Purchase * Chibuisi G. Alimba chivoptera@yahoo.com * Kannan Krishnamurthi k_krishnamurthi@neeri.res.in; krishnamurthikannan@gmail.com 1 Cell Biology and Genetics Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria 2 Department of Toxicology, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo), Technical University of Dortmund, 44139 Dortmund, Germany 3 Environmental Biotechnology and Genomic Division, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440020, India 4 Health and Toxicity Cell (HTC), CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur 440020, India 5 Academy of Scientific, Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, U.P., India Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15985-x