The dependency of radiation-induced genetic instability on the stage of spermatogenesis

Abstract

We previously reported that the genomic instability was observed on F1 mice born with irradiated sperm. In this report, we examined whether this phenomenon had the dependency of irradiation stage or not. It was only observed as spermatozoa stage irradiation, but not spermatid, -cyte and -gonia stage. Moreover, in two-next generation (F2) mice, the mutation frequency does not increase. These findings suggest that the genomic instability which we estimated especially occurs at spermatozoa stage. [J Radiat Res 44:442 (2003)]