Somatic mutational transients: models of response to acute and distributed doses of radiation applied to growing plants.

After limited exposures of whole plants to gamma radiation, the induced-mutation frequency, measured in somatic tissue of successively blooming flowers, is a transient function of time. Quantitative interpretation of the data is aided by construction of a cell-generation model. Seven theoretical models are designed to represent interaction between the cell-generation model and seven different modes of application of the radiation treatment. The models provide a structure for integration of the mutational contributions from different floral primordia. These different contributions are distributed over the array of mature flowers by the quantitative relationships of each model. A mathematical expression for the average response of a model can be equated to the average observed response and solved for the implied mutation rate per cell per roentgen.