Reduced pH increases recovery from radiation damage potentially leading to cell death and to in vitro transformation.

C3H-10T1/2 cells were grown to plateau phase and assessed for recovery from radiation damage under acidic and normal pH conditions. Repair of potentially lethal damage (PLD) was observed after X-ray doses of 5.0, 6.0 and 12.0 Gy and repair increased with dose. The repair at an acidic pH of 6.8 was greater than at the normal pH of 7.4. Repair of potentially transforming damage (PTD) was also observed when cells were held in plateau phase after irradiation. Repair of PTD was greater at the acidic pH than at the normal pH. When PTD recovery was plotted vs PLD recovery the results showed a good linear correlation with approximately twice as much PTDR. The experimental conditions allowing PLDR and PTDR indicate that the repair process may be error-free, since transformation was reduced in all experiments which showed recovery from PLD.