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Science 3 March 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5458, pp. 1658 - 1660
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5458.1658
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Reports

Resonant Formation of DNA Strand Breaks by Low-Energy (3 to 20 eV) Electrons

Badia Boudaïffa, Pierre Cloutier, Darel Hunting, Michael A. Huels, * Léon Sanche

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.

Canadian Medical Research Council Group in Radiation Sciences, Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Québec J1H 5N4, Canada.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mhuels01{at}courrier.usherb.ca

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