A comparison of micronucleus frequency and radiation survival in lymphoblastoid cell lines

The relationship between the formation of micronuclei (MN) following the treatment of cell lines with ionizing radiation and the radiation survival of cell lines is important as the MN assay has the potential to predict radiation survival. Studies investigating the relationship have reached conflicting conclusions. We examined the relationship between MN formation and radiation survival measured by a clonogenic assay in six lymphoblastoid cell lines over a dose range of 0-2.0 Gy. We did not find a predictive relationship between the radiation induced MN frequency and the radiation survival in these cell lines. Possible reasons for the lack of correlation include variations in the percentage of scorable cells after irradiation and culture with cytochalasin B, different numbers of cells in the G1 phase of the cell cycle at the time of irradiation, a greater toleration of the loss of MN by hyperdiploid cell lines compared to diploid cell lines and quantitative differences in the conversion of chromosomal fragments into MN for the cell lines.