Atomic force microscopy investigation of radiation-induced DNA double strand breaks.

We have used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study radiation-induced DNA double strand breaks. Double-stranded plasmid DNA was irradiated with 18-MeV electrons in aqueous buffer, using a medical linear accelerator. Doses of 50, 100, 150, and 200 Gy were delivered to DNA samples, and atomic force microscopy was used to measure the length of each DNA fragment. From these measurements, we obtained the average length of the irradiated DNA for each sample and found a linear-quadratic relationship between the average length and radiation dose.