What are the genetic effects of ionizing radiation?
The concern about the genetic effects of radiation has been present since the first discovery of radiation and the observation that radiation produced mutations in fruit flies. This observation triggered extensive studies on radiation-induced mutation. It is well established that both internally deposited and external exposure to ionizing radiation can cause mutations, chromosome aberrations, and transmitted genetic effects. The extent of these changes is very easy to measure in specialized cell and tissue cultures. In these cell-culture experimental systems the number of mutations increases as a linear function of radiation dose. Each unit of dose causes an increase in mutation frequency. However, research in mice demonstrated that there were changes in mutation frequency as a function of both dose and dose rate and that the number of mutations decreased as the radiation dose rate decreased. In addition, there are many steps and processes that a cell must accurately go through before
