MOLECULAR LESION SPECTRA AS RADIATION SIGNATURES

It is suggested that the distribution of DNA molecular lesions (i.e., molecular lesion spectrum, MLS) produced by a particular electromagnet ic radiation characterizes that radiation, and that these distribution s may serve as radiation signatures. These signatures can have the adv antages of (1) high fidelity, (2) persistence times at least ten order s of magnitude greater than track structures, and (3) a space-time cel lular position which is approximately half way between initial insult and ultimate biological dysfunction. Spectra are presented for 405nm, 254nm and gamma-ray radiations. These MLS's are visually distinctive. Comparable data bases for most other radiations, particulate and elect romagnetic. are generally incomplete. We propose the application of ad aptive feature recognition and classification techniques to the extrac tion of radiation signatures for such incomplete data sets. In this wo rk, however, such an application is restricted to quantitation of the degree of orthogonality of the three patterns (i.e., MLS's) for 405nm, 254nm and gamma-rays.