Diagrammatic representation for chromosomal mutagenesis studies. II. Radiation-induced rearrangements in Macaca...

A qualitative study is presented of chromosomal rearrangements induced in peripheral blood lymphocytes of Macaca fascicularis, after exposure to gamma-irradiation at 2 Gy and 3 Gy. The use of a new diagrammatic representation allowed us to compare, for each type of rearrangement, the distribution of the observed break-points with the theoretical random distribution. It was concluded that chromosomal mutagenesis does not occur at random: an excess of involvement of small chromosomes is found for dicentrics and reciprocal translocations; an excess of telomeric breaks exists in dicentrics and paracentric inversions. In our sample of 27 pericentric inversions, the larger chromosomes are too frequently involved, 2 different inversions are observed at least twice and 7 (or 8) reproduce chromosomes of other primates.