X-ray-induced chromosome damage in live mammalian cells, and improved measurements of its effects on their colony-forming ability.

We have improved the precision of the technique described by Grote et al. (1981 a,b) for the observation of the radiation responses of live cultured mammalian cells with an incubated phase-contrast microscope: the colony-forming abilities of single cells obtained by selective detachment of mitoses (instead of cell pairs as previously) may now be followed individually and may be directly compared with chromosome damage detected after post-radiation mitosis (M1). An X-ray dose of 1.4 Gy to diploid Syrian hamster cells (BHK 21 C13) in G1 had no effect on cell ability to reach M1. If chromosome fragment loss was then detected (as micronuclei) in the daughter-cell pair then colony-forming ability nearly always deteriorated, and either a stop-growth (79 per cent) or a slow-growth (21 per cent) colony resulted; but chromosomal bridges which persisted beyond M1 broke during interphase 1 and themselves caused no detectable cell damage additional to that attributable to the micronuclei which accompanied them.