The dose and dose-rate effects of paternal irradiation on transgenerational instability in mice: a radiotherapy connection.

The non-targeted effects of human exposure to ionising radiation, including transgenerational instability manifesting in the children of irradiated parents, remains poorly understood. Employing a mouse model, we have analysed whether low-dose acute or low-dose-rate chronic paternal γ-irradiation can destabilise the genomes of their first-generation offspring. Using single-molecule PCR, the frequency of mutation at the mouse expanded simple tandem repeat (ESTR) locus Ms6-hm was established in DNA samples extracted from sperm of directly exposed BALB/c male mice, as well as from sperm and the brain of their first-generation offspring.