Rejoining of double strand breaks in normal human and ataxia-telangiectasia fibroblasts after exposure to 60Co gamma-rays, 241Am alpha-particles or bleomycin.

The rejoining of DNA double strand breaks (dsb) induced by 60Co gamma-rays, 241Am alpha-particles or bleomycin was measured by neutral filter elution. In agreement with their colony-forming ability, ataxia-telangiectasia cells (AT2BE) and normal fibroblasts exhibited similar dsb rejoining capacity following alpha-irradiation, but showed marked differences in the rejoining kinetics of dsb induced by gamma-rays or bleomycin.