COMPARISON OF FISSION NEUTRONS AND γ-RAYS IN RESPECT TO THEIR EFFICIENCY IN INDUCING MUTATIONS IN SILKWORM GONIA
1965 Volume 40 Issue 2 Pages 113-124
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1965 Volume 40 Issue 2 Pages 113-124
An investigation was made of the effects of fission neutrons on the induction of visible recessive mutations in early and in late gonial cells of the silkworm. The results were compared with those of our previous reports, in which 14MeV neutrons and 137Cs γ-rays were used.
1) Dose-mutation frequency curve for fission neutrons is essentially the same as that for other radiations, showing a slow rise in the lower dose range but a rapid rise in the higher dose range.
2) Mutation response to fission neutrons was almost similar for male and female gonial cells, although higher frequencies were observed for fission neutrons than for γ-rays or 14MeV neutrons.
3) When radiation doses producing a frequency of 10-3 of visible recessive egg-color mutations were used as a criterion, the relative biological effectiveness of fission neutrons to γ-rays was about 1.7 to 2.4 for early stage gonia and 3.0 to 4.2 for late stage gonia. Similar results have already been reported for 14MeV neutrons, although the values were smaller.
4) All the dose-frequency curves obtained in the recent series of our work with γ-rays, 14MeV neutrons and fission neutrons are given in the present paper to make them available for further investigations in this field.
