Russell W L
Arch Toxicol. 1977 Sep 21;38(1-2):141-7. doi: 10.1007/BF00293671.
Radiation genetics has demonstrated that mutagenesis is a complex process affected by many factors. The ABCW hypothesis, that mutation frequency per rad over a wide range of organisms, from microbes to man, is linearly related to DNA content, ignores the fact that, within the mouse alone, different cell stages exhibit a range of mutation rates greater than that listed for the whole evolutionary tree. Also ignored are the findings that the important effects of dose rate and some other factors in the mouse were not predictable even from Drosophila. A much greater maze of complexities has already been found in chemical mutagenesis. This is illustrated even by the results obtained from testing of a single drug. Thus, it is clear that the attempt to extend the ABCW hypothesis to chemicals will be of little, if any, predictive value. Similarly, such concepts as the REC (roentgen-equivalent-chemical), designed to express the mutagenic risk from a chemical by a single unit quantitatively related to radiation damage, are defeated by the extreme qualitative differences in response. Unifying theories and simple non-mammalian tests that reliably predict the results in mammals cannot be expected to materialize until much more information has been collected on transmitted mutations induced in mammalian germ cells.
辐射遗传学已证明，诱变是一个受多种因素影响的复杂过程。ABCW假说认为，从微生物到人类的广泛生物体中，每拉德的突变频率与DNA含量呈线性关系，但该假说忽略了一个事实，仅在小鼠体内，不同细胞阶段的突变率范围就比整个进化树中列出的范围还要大。同样被忽视的是，即使从果蝇实验中也无法预测剂量率和其他一些因素在小鼠体内的重要影响。在化学诱变中已经发现了更加复杂的情况。这甚至从单一药物测试的结果中就可以看出。因此，很明显，将ABCW假说扩展到化学物质上的尝试即使有预测价值也很小。同样，诸如REC（伦琴当量化学物质）之类的概念，旨在通过与辐射损伤定量相关的单一单位来表达化学物质的诱变风险，但由于反应中存在极端的质量差异而无法成立。在收集到更多关于哺乳动物生殖细胞中诱导的遗传突变的信息之前，可靠预测哺乳动物结果的统一理论和简单的非哺乳动物测试不太可能实现。
