skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Increase in Phi X174 DNA radiation sensitivity due to electric fields

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5425221

The object of this research was to establish whether or not orientation of DNA in electric fields would result in a significant increase in its sensitivity to damage by ionizing radiation. The application of an external electric field simultaneously with gamma irradiation to an aqueous suspension of Phi X 174 (in the RFI form) is shown to increase significantly the number of strand breaks. Tritiated DNA allowed the number of single-strand breaks to be estimated from changes in the scintillation of electrophoretic gel band associated with the fastest mobility moiety. At 400 V ( approx. 2400 V/cm) the corrected increase (corrected for phoresis of DNA on the stainless steel plates) in the G-value yield is 38%. The increase in damage with field strength appears to follow the increase in reduced dichroism. Dichroism results correspond at 400 V to approximately 10% of the maximum orientation. These results support the conjecture that this significant increase in DNA-radiation interaction with an electric field is due to field-induced conformation changes in the molecule. Keywords: Polyelectrolytes, Polynucleotides, Polypeptides, Birefringence, Dipole, and Moments.

Research Organization:
Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Inst., Bethesda, MD (USA)
OSTI ID:
5425221
Report Number(s):
AD-A-167135/3/XAB
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English