title: The effect of dose rate on X-radiation-induced mutant frequency and the nature of DNA lesions in mouse lymphoma L5178Y cells.
abstract: The induction of mutants at the heterozygous tk locus by X radiation was found to be dose-rate dependent in L5178Y-R16 (LY-R16) cells, but very little dose-rate dependence was observed in the case of strain L5178Y-S1 (LY-S1), which is deficient in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Induction of mutants by X radiation at the hemizygous hprt locus was dose-rate independent for both strains. These results are in agreement with the hypothesis that the majority of X-radiation-induced TK-/- mutants harbor multilocus deletions caused by the interaction of damaged DNA sites. Repair of DNA lesions during low-dose-rate X irradiation would be expected to reduce the probability of lesion interaction. The results suggest that in contrast to the TK-/- mutants, the majority of mutations at the hprt locus in these strains of L5178Y cells are caused by single lesions subject to dose-rate-independent repair. The vast majority of the TK-/- mutants of strain LY-R16 showed loss of the entire active tk allele, whether the mutants arose spontaneously or were induced by high-dose-rate or low-dose-rate X irradiation. The proportion of TK-/- mutants with multilocus deletions (in which the products of both the tk gene and the closely linked gk gene were inactivated) was higher in the repair-deficient strain LY-S1 than in strain LY-R16. However, even though the mutant frequency decreased with dose rate, the proportion of mutants showing inactivation of both the tk and gk genes increased with a decrease in dose rate. The reason for these apparently conflicting results concerning the effect of DNA repair on the induction of extended lesions is under investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
authors.forename: H H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mencl
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Horng
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ricanati
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004249:DNA Damage; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D007940:Leukemia L5178; D051379:Mice; D009154:Mutation; D011831:Radiation Genetics; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured / Q000528:radiation effects
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm