New Method Offers Insight into Radiation Damage to DNA

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Sutherlands team found that clustered DNA lesions that occur upstream of a reference lesion on the opposite DNA strand (blue marker) are repaired well (indicated by green) while lesions that occur downstream or to both sides of the reference lesion a ...
Sutherland's team found that clustered DNA lesions that occur "upstream" of a reference lesion on the opposite DNA strand (blue marker) are repaired well (indicated by green), while lesions that occur "downstream" or to both sides of the reference lesion are repaired poorly (red). X-rays tend to produce equal numbers of up and downstream lesions, so about half the lesions are readily repaired. High-energy charged particles, on the other hand, produce much more complex two-sided clusters of lesions, making them harder to repair.

A new technique for assessing the damage radiation causes to DNA indicates that the spatial arrangement of damaged sites, or lesions, is more important than the number of lesions in determining the severity of the damage. The technique, developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Brookhaven National Laboratory, helps reveal why high-energy charged particles such as the heavy ions in outer space are more potentially harmful than lower-energy forms of radiation such as x-rays and gamma rays.


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