Compound Poisson processes and clustered damage of radiation induced DNA double strand breaks

Recent experimental data have demonstrated that DNA damage induced by dense ly ionizing radiation in mammalian cells is distributed along the DNA molec ule in the form of clusters. The principal constituent of DNA damage are do uble-strand breaks (DSB) which are formed when the breaks occur in both DNA strands and are directly opposite or separated by only a few base pairs. D SBs are believed to be most important lesions produced in chromosomes by ra diation; interaction between DSBs can lead to cell killing, mutation or car cinogenesis. The paper discusses a model of clustered DSB formation viewed in terms of compound Poisson process along with the predictive essay of the formalism in application to experimental data.