title: The repair of sub-lethal damage and the stimulated repair of potentially lethal damage in Saintpaulia.
abstract: The repair of sublethal and potentially lethal damage in stationary resting epidermal cells of Saintpaulia has been investigated. Fractionation experiments reveal an efficient repair of sublethal damage with a half-life of 1.9 hours. No repair of potentially lethal damage was noted when cultivation of the leaves was delayed for 24 hours after irradiation. At delay times of 2, 3 and 4 days some repair of potentially lethal damage has been found. A small pre-dose given 24 hours before a challenging dose improved the cells' chance to regenerate and the improvement has been shown to be compatible with an improved repair of potentially lethal damage induced by X-rays and fast neutrons. It hs been shown that the stimulated repair process takes 12 to 24 hours to develop, is dependent on the size of the pre-dose, has single-hit dose kinetics, and an r.b.e. of 1 for neutrons. With delayed cultivation of 2 days the stimulated repair process leads to an alteration in the shape of the regeneration (survival)-dose relationship which increases the low dose r.b.e. for neutrons from 10 to 35.
mesh_terms: D004260:DNA Repair; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D006207:Half-Life; D009502:Neutrons; D010944:Plants / Q000528:radiation effects* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014965:X-Rays