Abstract
A report in a recent issue of the Proceedings by Hei and coworkers (1) represents the latest and most direct challenge to presumptions that radiation-induced genetic alterations require damage within the nucleus. Their experiments demonstrate that cytoplasmic irradiation with very low fluences of α-particles induces mutations in a human–hamster hybrid cell line. This observation of mutagenesis after low-fluence α-irradiation of the cytoplasm (1) builds on previous evidence for a “bystander effect” (2–4), which refers to the induction of genetic alterations in cells that are not themselves irradiated but that are neighboring to cells actually traversed by an α-particle. The current report (1) confirms suggestions from bystander effect studies that the relevant cross-section for mutagenic hits is much larger than the nucleus and may be expected to further stimulate rapidly growing interest in elucidation of the underlying mechanisms.
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