Effects of chronic low level radiation in the population residing in the high level natural radiation area in Kerala, India: Employing heritable DNA mutation studies

Abstract

To study the effect of chronic low level radiation, 4040 meiosis were screened at eight microsatellite and five minisatellite (2485 and 1555 meiosis respectively) marker loci in people residing in high and normal level natural radiation areas of Kerala. Variants in the repeat length of allele were considered as mutants. Mutation rates (expressed as the number of mutations observed in the total number of meiosis) were 6.4×10−3 (16/2485) and 2.6×10−3 (4/1555) at microsatellite and minisatellite respectively. The germline microsatellite mutation frequency of father was 1.78 times higher at 7.52×10−3 (8/1064) compared to 4.22×10−3 (6/1421) of mother (P=0.292, Fisher's Exact two-sided test). The paternal and maternal mutation rates at minisatellite loci were more or less similar at 2.78×10−3 (2/719) and 2.39×10−3 (2/836), respectively (P=1.0, Fisher's Exact two-sided test). Higher but statistically non-significant microsatellite mutation frequency was observed in HLNRA compared to NLNRA (7.25×10−3 vs 3.64×10−3; P=0.547). The apparent increase in the mutation rate of microsatellite loci with the increase in radiation dose was also not statistically significant. All the four minisatellite mutation observed were from HLNRA (1198 meiosis) and no mutation was observed among 357 meiosis screened from NLNRA families. All the markers used in the present study were in the non-coding region and hence mutations in these regions may not cause adverse health effects, but the study is important in understanding the effect of chronic low level radiation.