Aa. Arrage et al., BACTERIAL SENSITIVITY TO UV-LIGHT AS A MODEL FOR IONIZING-RADIATION RESISTANCE, Journal of microbiological methods, 18(2), 1993, pp. 127-136
Six bacterial isolates from the U.S. DOE Subsurface Science Program an
d three reference bacteria were tested for resistance to UV light and
gamma radiation. The subsurface isolates included three aerobic, pigme
nted, Gram positive bacteria and three microaerophilic, non-pigmented,
Gram negative bacteria. Deinococcus radiodurans was the most resistan
t bacterium to both types of radiation, with a D37 value of 4.0 x 10(4
) muWS CM-2 to UV light and 300 krads to gamma radiation. The aerobic
subsurface bacteria were found to be significantly more resistant (p <
0.05) than the microaerophilic subsurface bacteria to UV light and ga
mma radiation. Due to the similarities of bacterial survival between U
V and gamma radiation; it is proposed that UV light could be utilized
to model the fate of microorganisms exposed to ionizing radiation.