Induction of HPRT- mutants in Chinese hamster V79 cells after heavy ion exposure

The induction of resistance to 6-thioguanine by heavy ion exposure was investigated with various accelerated ions (oxygen-uranium) up to linear energy transfer (LET) values of about 15,000 keV/microns. Survival curves are exponential with fluence; mutation induction shows a linear dependence. Cross-sections (sigma i: inactivation, sigma m: mutation) were derived from the respective slopes. Generally, sigma i rises over the whole LET range, but separates into different declining curves for single ions with LET values above 200 keV/microns. Similar behaviour is seen for sigma m. The new SIS facility at GSI, Darmstadt, makes it possible to study the effects of ions with the same LET but very different energies and track structures. Experiments using nickel and oxygen ions (up to 400 MeV/u) showed that inactivation cross-sections do not depend very much on track structure, i.e. similar values are found with different ions at the same LET. This is not the case for mutation induction, where very energetic ions display considerably smaller induction cross-sections, compared with low-energy ions of identical LET. Preliminary analyses using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) demonstrate that even heavy ions cause "small alterations" (small deletions or base changes). The proportion of the total deletions seems to increase with LET.