title: Direct visualisation of heavy ion induced DNA fragmentation using atomic force microscopy.
abstract: Atomic Force Microscopy of phiX174 plasmids irradiated in vitro was used to visualise the DNA fragmentation induced by heavy ions and to compare it to the fragmentation pattern obtained after X-irradiation. Fragment distributions induced by low ion fuences were found to be much more shifted towards small fragment sizes than the distributions obtained after corresponding doses of X-rays. The average fragment length was found to be significantly smaller than the full plasmid length even for single ion traversals.
authors.affiliation: Heavy Ion Research Centre (GSI), Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brons
authors.forename: Katarzyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Psonka
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heiss
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gudowska-Nowak
authors.forename: Gisela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Taucher-Scholz
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Neumann
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004249:DNA Damage; D053938:DNA Fragmentation; D020450:Heavy Ions; D006801:Humans; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D014965:X-Rays
chemical_list: D004247:DNA