Induction and Repair of Double-Strand DNA Breaks in Mammalian Cells Detected by Neutral Elution

摘要

One of the important types of damage induced by ionizing radiation in intracellular DNA is the double-strand break (dsb). This damage, involving disruption of both strands of the DNA-helix at the same or neighboring sites, is produced at a much lower frequency than other lesions (single-strand breaks, nucleotide damage). One would expect, however, that double-strand breaks would be much more deleterious for the cell than lesions of the latter type as these probably are repaired more easily. The neutral filter elution technique has proven to be a sensitive means of detecting DNA dsb after exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation. However, the results obtained with it reported in literature are in some cases controversial as well as in disagreement with results of other methods. In the report the reliability of the different methods for the detection of dsb induced by ionizing radiation and other agents are discussed.