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Double the Mutations
from the Scientist (Registration Required)
Many mouse studies have shown that radiation treatment can cause germline mutations, which can then be passed onto subsequent generations. Now, new research in mice takes this idea one step further: this mutagenic environment can be transferred from sperm to eggs upon fertilization, doubling the mutations in the resulting embryos.
The study, published today (January 30) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises health concerns for children of young cancer survivors, most of whom have been through multiple rounds of radiation treatment. "This result is now so solid that I think we can't ignore it," said radiologist Keith Baverstock from the University of Eastern Finland, who was not involved in the research. "It is an important result because these drugs and radiation are all we really have to treat cancer."
Baby mice sired by fathers exposed to any of a variety of radiation types--chemical, ionizing, and chemotherapeutic--all have a far higher mutation rate than expected by chance. "The children of irradiated mice are unstable," said Yuri Dubrova, a geneticist at the University of Leicester "They show quite high rate by which mutations occur in the germ cells, egg and sperm, and same is true for their somatic cells."
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