Initial Events in the Cellular Effects of Ionizing Radiations: Clustered Damage in DNA
Abstract
General correlations are found between the detailed spatial and temporal nature of the initial physical features of radiation insult and the likelihood of final biological consequences. These persist despite the chain of physical, chemical and biological processes that eliminate the vast majority of the early damage. Details of the initial conditions should provide guidance to critical features of the most relevant early biological damage and subsequent repair. Ionizing radiations produce many hundreds of different simple chemical products in DNA and also multitudes of possible clustered combinations. The simple products, including single-strand breaks, tend to correlate poorly with biological effectiveness. Even for initial double-strand breaks, as a broad class, there is apparently little or no increase in yield with increasing ionization density, in contrast with the large rise in relative biological effectiveness for cellular effects. Track structure analysis has revealed that clustered DNA damage of severity greater than simple double-strand breaks is likely to occur at biologically relevant frequencies with all ionizing radiations. Studies are in progress to describe in more detail the chemical nature of these clustered lesions and to consider the implications for cellular repair. It has been hypothesized that there is reduced repair of the more severe examples and that the spectrum of lesions that dominate the final cellular consequences is heavily skewed towards the m…
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DNA damage is a good indicator of radiation clustering properties and therefore of radiation quality.
“Albeit not exhaustive of cellular endpoints, DNA damage is here chosen as a good indicator of radiation clustering properties and therefore of radiation quality.”
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- Authors
- Goodhead, D. T.
- Affiliations
- Medical Research Council (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Goodhead, D.T.
- Venue
- International Journal of Radiation Biology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1994-01
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 7-17
- ISSN
- 0955-3002 (ISSN-L)
- 1362-3095
- OpenAlex
- W2019963243
- Cited by
- 1,204
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 58 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 57
- FWCI
- 18.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Journal of Radiation Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Effects of Radiation Exposure
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Radiation Therapy and Dosimetry
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › DNA Repair Mechanisms
- Keywords
- ionizing radiation, clustered DNA damage, DNA double-strand breaks, single-strand breaks, relative biological effectiveness, ionization density, DNA repair, radiation-induced DNA damage
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cells, DNA, DNA Damage, DNA, Single-Stranded, Humans, Relative Biological Effectiveness
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