Estimated yield of double-strand breaks from internal exposure to tritium

Internal exposure to tritium may result in DNA lesions. Of those, DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are believed to be important. However, experimental and computational data of DSBs induction by tritium are very limited. In this study, microdosimetric characteristics of uniformly distributed tritium were determined in dimensions of critical significance in DNA DSBs. Those characteristics were used to identify other particles comparable to tritium in terms of microscopic energy deposition. The yield of DSBs could be strongly dependent on biological systems and cellular environments. After reviewing theoretically predicted and experimentally determined DSB yields available in the literature for low-energy electrons and high-energy protons of comparable microdosimetric characteristics to tritium in the dimensions relevant to DSBs, it is estimated that the average DSB yields of 2.7 × 10(-11), 0.93 × 10(-11), 2.4 × 10(-11) and 1.6 × 10(-11) DSBs Gy(-1) Da(-1) could be reasonable estimates for tritium in plasmid DNAs, yeast cells, Chinese hamster V79 cells and human fibroblasts, respectively. If a biological system is not specified, the DSB yield from tritium exposure can be estimated as (2.3 ± 0.7) × 10(-11) DSBs Gy(-1) Da(-1), which is a simple average over experimentally determined yields of DSBs for low-energy electrons in various biological systems without considerations of variations caused by different techniques used and obvious differences among different biological systems where the DSB yield was measured.