Biological damage from intranuclear tritium: DNA strand breaks and their repair

Isotopic decay in tritiated thymidine in the DNA of frozen (-196 degrees C) Chinese hamster cells causes breaks in DNA strands to accumulate at a rate of 2.1 breaks per decay. After DNA is thawed the tritium-induced breaks repair rapidly with a half-time of 15 minutes at 37 degrees C. In comparison to breakage by x-rays, the efficiency of DNA strand breakage by tritium is equivalent to 0.48 rad per decay. This dose per decay is close to that predicted by simple dosimetric considerations (0.38 rad per decay) for irradiation by the beta particles from tritium.