Abstract
A single cell irradiation system has been developed at JAERI-Takasaki. Individual mammalian cultured cells are irradiated in the atmosphere on the cell dish, the bottom of which is made of ion-track-detector CR-39, with a single or precise numbers of 13.0 MeV/u 20Ne and 11.5 MeV/u 40Ar ions. Positional data of the target cells are obtained at the off-line microscope before irradiation. Targeting and irradiation of the cells are performed automatically at the on-line microscope of the microbeam apparatus according to the obtained data. About 50-100 cells are irradiated in several minutes. The number of ions traversed the cells attached on the ion track detector CR-39 were counted with a plastic scintillator-photomultiplier tube assembly and a constant fraction discriminator. Immediately after the irradiation, the bottom of the cell dish was etched at 37 C to check the spatial distribution of irradiated ions. The one batch of cell sample is treated in about 1 hr including the phases of cell finding, irradiation, and etching/observing of the ion track detector CR-39. [J Radiat Res 44:443 (2003)]
