Resonant formation of DNA strand breaks by low-energy (3 to 20 eV) electrons |
| |
Authors: | Boudaïffa B Cloutier P Hunting D Huels M A Sanche L |
| |
Affiliation: | Canadian Medical Research Council Group in Radiation Sciences, Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Québec J1H 5N4, Canada. |
| |
Abstract: | Most of the energy deposited in cells by ionizing radiation is channeled into the production of abundant free secondary electrons with ballistic energies between 1 and 20 electron volts. Here it is shown that reactions of such electrons, even at energies well below ionization thresholds, induce substantial yields of single- and double-strand breaks in DNA, which are caused by rapid decays of transient molecular resonances localized on the DNA's basic components. This finding presents a fundamental challenge to the traditional notion that genotoxic damage by secondary electrons can only occur at energies above the onset of ionization, or upon solvation when they become a slowly reacting chemical species. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|