THE STUDY OF POSTIRRADIATION RECOVERY OF YEAST - THE PREMOLECULAR PERIOD

Recovery of yeast cells after exposure to ionizing radiation was disco vered in 1957. During the following decade, i.e., in the 'premolecular period' of studying this phenomenon, its basic features including dep endence on cell ploidy, cellular energy exchange and radiation linear energy transfer (LET) were determined and a mathematical model of reco very was proposed. In addition, DNA double-strand breaks were shown to be the damage causing death of irradiated haploid and diploid cells. The results of these investigations led to the formulation of the conc ept that the ability of a cell to repair genetic damage was of univers al biological importance.